... Even YOU miss the point? guess I utterly failed at explaining it then.
IF I could solve the problem I'm stating in the first post, then this would indeed be almost true. It might be true in 99% of cases, but 0.99^infinity is still ~0. Thus that is the only probability I can consistently assign to it. I MIGHT be able to self modify to be able to hold inconsistent beliefs, but that's double think and you have explicitly, loudly and repeatedly warned against and condemned it.
I'm baffled at how I seem unable to point at/communicate the concept. I even tired pointing at a specific instance of you using something very similar in MoR.
The probability of recovering is exactly half of what you estimate it to be due to the placebo effect/positive thinking.
It would take an artificially bad situation for this to be the case. In the real world, the placebo effect still works, even if you know it's a placebo--although with diminished efficacy.
But that's beside the point. More on-point is that intentional self-delusion, if possible, is at best a crapshoot. It's not systematic; it relies on luck, and it's prone to Martingale-type failures.
The HPMOR and placebo examples appear, to me, to s...
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
If continuing the discussion becomes impractical, that means you win at open threads; a celebratory top-level post on the topic is traditional.