army1987 comments on Rationality quotes January 2012 - Less Wrong

9 Post author: Thomas 01 January 2012 10:28AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 04 January 2012 12:13:56AM *  6 points [-]

"How would I explain the event of my left arm being replaced by a blue tentacle? The answer is that I wouldn't. It isn't going to happen."

Eliezer Yudkowsky

(Some discussions here, such as those involving such numbers as 3^^^3, give me the same feeling.)

Comment author: cousin_it 05 January 2012 12:03:22PM *  5 points [-]

I don't understand that quote. A good Bayesian should still pick the aposteriori most probable explanation for an improbable event, even if that explanation has very low prior probability before the event.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 06 January 2012 06:21:53AM 7 points [-]

I suspect the point is that it's not worthwhile to look for potential explanations for improbable events until they actually happen.

Comment author: APMason 15 January 2012 08:53:22PM 4 points [-]

I think it's more than that - he's saying that if you have a plausible explanation for an event, the event itself is plausible, explanations being models of the world. It's a warning against setting up excuses for why your model fails to predict the future in advance - you shouldn't expect your model to fail, so when it does you don't say, "Oh, here's how this extremely surprising event fits my model anyway." Instead, you say "damn, looks like I was wrong."

Comment author: APMason 15 January 2012 08:54:31PM 2 points [-]

I don't, however, think it's meant to be a warning against contrived thought experiments.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 04 January 2012 12:32:02AM *  5 points [-]

Absolutely: I strongly recommend you not try to explain how 3^^^3 people might all get a dustspeck in their eye without anything else happening as a consequence, for example.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 04 January 2012 04:28:39PM 2 points [-]

Is Eliezer claiming that we aren't living in a simulation, claiming that if we are living in a simulation, it's extremely unlikely to generate wild anomalies, or claiming that anything other than those two is vanishingly unlikely?

Comment author: WrongBot 04 January 2012 06:22:27PM *  2 points [-]

It's Yudkowsky. Sorry, pet peeve.

Comment author: [deleted] 04 January 2012 07:41:31PM 1 point [-]

Fixed.

Comment author: Arran_Stirton 04 January 2012 04:05:28AM 0 points [-]

Sorry to be so ignorant but what is 3^^^3? Google yielded no satisfactory results...

Comment author: MinibearRex 04 January 2012 04:22:00AM 4 points [-]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth_arrow

TheOtherDave's other comment summed up what it means practically. Also, see http://lesswrong.com/lw/kn/torturevsdust_specks/.

Comment author: Arran_Stirton 04 January 2012 04:47:27AM 1 point [-]

Ah thank you, that clarifies things greatly! Up-voted for the technical explanation.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 04 January 2012 04:18:07AM 1 point [-]

A number so ridiculously big that 3^^^3 * X can be assumed to be bigger than Y for pretty much any values of X and Y.