Zed comments on Take heed, for it is a trap - Less Wrong

47 Post author: Zed 14 August 2011 10:23AM

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Comment author: wmorgan 17 August 2011 04:26:40AM *  4 points [-]

Let n be an integer. Knowing nothing else about n, would you assign 50% probability to n being odd? To n being positive? To n being greater than 3? You see how fast you get into trouble.

You need a prior distribution on n. Without a prior, these probabilities are not 50%. They are undefined.

The particular mathematical problem is that you can't define a uniform distribution over an unbounded domain. This doesn't apply to the biased coin: in that case, you know the bias is somewhere between 0 and 1, and for every distribution that favors heads, there's one that favors tails, so you can actually perform the integration.

Finally, on an empirical level, it seems like there are more false n-bit statements than true n-bit statements. Like, if you took the first N Godel numbers, I'd expect more falsehoods than truths. Similarly for statements like "Obama is the 44th president": so many ways to go wrong, just a few ways to go right.

Edit: that last paragraph isn't right. For every true proposition, there's a false one of equal complexity.

Comment author: Zed 17 August 2011 09:13:54AM *  5 points [-]

Finally, on an empirical level, it seems like there are more false n-bit statements than true n-bit statements.

I'm pretty certain this intuition is false. It feels true because it's much harder to come up with a true statement from N bits if you restrict yourself to positive claims about reality. If you get random statements like "the frooble fuzzes violently" they're bound to be false, right? But for every nonsensical or false statement you also get the negation of a nonsensical or false statement. "not( the frooble fuzzes violiently)". It's hard to arrive at a statement like "Obama is the 44th president" and be correct, but it's very easy to enumerate a million things that do not orbit Pluto (and be correct).

(FYI: somewhere below there is a different discussion about whether there are more n-bit statements about reality that are false than true)