Antisuji comments on A (very) tentative refutation of Pascal's mugging - Less Wrong

0 Post author: Arran_Stirton 30 March 2012 06:43AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (34)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: [deleted] 30 March 2012 04:21:07PM 1 point [-]

we're more surprised when we see the former than the latter

I don't think this is actually true. If MileyCyrus successfully predicted the exact sequence of coinflips HTHTTHTHTTTHHTH, wouldn't you be more surprised than if it were HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH?

Comment author: Antisuji 30 March 2012 06:44:55PM 1 point [-]

Of course. When I said "we're more surprised" I was referring to the typical person who hasn't read this discussion thread. In the absence of the above prediction, I would be far more surprised to see HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH than HTHTTHTHTTTHHTH. Once the prediction is made, I become extremely surprised if either sequence appears, but somewhat more surprised by HTHTTHTHTTTHHTH.

Comment author: [deleted] 30 March 2012 06:58:47PM 1 point [-]

Oh, I see. In the case of the typical person, the answer is even easier: Lack of understanding of the conjunction rule of probability. HTHTTHTHTTTHHTH feels more representative of a random series of coin flips, so it is intuitively judged as more probable than HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.