Sideways comments on Rationalists should beware rationalism - Less Wrong

27 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 06 April 2009 02:16PM

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Comment author: Sideways 07 April 2009 08:04:47PM -1 points [-]

Bayes' Theorem is undefined if p(X) is undefined.

Suppose our untestable-in-principle hypothesis is that undetectable dragons in your garage cause cancer. Then X is "undetectable garage dragon." As far as I can tell, there is no way to assign a probability to an undetectable dragon.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Comment author: steven0461 07 April 2009 08:19:06PM 5 points [-]

As far as I can tell, there is no way to assign a probability to an undetectable dragon.

Solomonoff induction. Presumably you agree the probability is less than .1, and once you've granted that, we're "just haggling over the price".

Comment author: Annoyance 07 April 2009 08:09:38PM -1 points [-]

What's wrong with zero? An indetectable something is redundant and can be eliminated without loss; it has no consequences that the negation of its existence doesn't also imply. You might as well treat it as impossible - if you don't like giving zero probabilities, assign it whatever value you use for things-that-can't-occur.