Stupid Questions Open Thread Round 2

OpenThreadGuy

From Costanza's original thread (entire text):

This is for anyone in the LessWrong community who has made at least some effort to read the sequences and follow along, but is still confused on some point, and is perhaps feeling a bit embarrassed. Here, newbies and not-so-newbies are free to ask very basic but still relevant questions with the understanding that the answers are probably somewhere in the sequences. Similarly, LessWrong tends to presume a rather high threshold for understanding science and technology. Relevant questions in those areas are welcome as well. Anyone who chooses to respond should respectfully guide the questioner to a helpful resource, and questioners should be appropriately grateful. Good faith should be presumed on both sides, unless and until it is shown to be absent. If a questioner is not sure whether a question is relevant, ask it, and also ask if it's relevant.

Meta:

How often should these be made? I think one every three months is the correct frequency.
Costanza made the original thread, but I am OpenThreadGuy. I am therefore not only entitled but required to post this in his stead. But I got his permission anyway.

From Costanza's original thread (entire text):

This is for anyone in the LessWrong community who has made at least some effort to read the sequences and follow along, but is still confused on some point, and is perhaps feeling a bit embarrassed. Here, newbies and not-so-newbies are free to ask very basic but still relevant questions with the understanding that the answers are probably somewhere in the sequences. Similarly, LessWrong tends to presume a rather high threshold for understanding science and technology. Relevant questions in those areas are welcome as well. Anyone who chooses to respond should respectfully guide the questioner to a helpful resource, and questioners should be appropriately grateful. Good faith should be presumed on both sides, unless and until it is shown to be absent. If a questioner is not sure whether a question is relevant, ask it, and also ask if it's relevant.

Meta:

How often should these be made? I think one every three months is the correct frequency.
Costanza made the original thread, but I am OpenThreadGuy. I am therefore not only entitled but required to post this in his stead. But I got his permission anyway.

http://wiki.lesswrong.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Jargon

Belief update What you do to your beliefs, opinions and cognitive structure when new evidence comes along.

I know what it means to update your beliefs, and opinions is again beliefs. What does it mean to "update your cognitive structure"? Does it mean anything or is it just that whoever wrote it needed a third noun for rhythm purposes?

It's the process of changing your mind about something when new evidence on something comes your way.

The different jargon acts as a reminder that the process ought not be an arbitrary one, but (well, in an ideal world anyway) should follow the evidence in a way defined by Bayes theorem.

I don't think there's any particular definition of what constitutes, belief, opinion and cognitive structure. It's all just beliefs, although some of it might then be practised habit.

2David_Gerard14y

I wrote that line in the jargon file quoting the first line of the relevant wiki page. The phrase was there in the first revision of that page - put there by an IP. If that IP is still present and could explain ... I could come up with surmises as to what it could plausibly mean, but I'd be making them up and it isn't actually clear to me in April 2012 either.

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