FiftyTwo comments on New Year's Prediction Thread (2012) - Less Wrong

20 Post author: gwern 01 January 2012 09:35AM

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Comment author: FiftyTwo 03 January 2012 05:35:27PM *  0 points [-]

All of these are contingent on the degree of certainty the available evidence allows us to have in the theories that predict these results. I don't think there's any degree of evidence that would make a 100% prediction rational. (To illustrate, consider independently the probabilities that all physicists are part of a conspiracy, supernatural entities exist and/or we live in a simulation.)

I realise this was probably meant flippantly, but there is a serious point to be made about confusing 'the best estimates based on our currently available knowledge and theory' and 'immutable laws of the universe.'

Comment author: dbaupp 03 January 2012 10:44:11PM 0 points [-]

I don't think there's any degree of evidence that would make a 100% prediction rational.

Yep! :)