johnlawrenceaspden comments on An Intuitive Explanation of Solomonoff Induction - Less Wrong

53 Post author: Alex_Altair 11 July 2012 08:05AM

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Comment author: johnlawrenceaspden 16 July 2012 10:39:13AM 0 points [-]

Wait, what? I'm taking a stack of identical things and whether they work or not depends on a randomly generated list I've never seen?

Comment author: TGM 16 July 2012 11:38:00AM *  1 point [-]

If you have a selection of 'magic' sugar pills, and you want to test them for being magic vs placebo effect, you do a study comparing their efficacy to that of 'non-magic' sugar pills.

If they are magic, then you aren't comparing identical things, because only some of them have the 'magic' property

Comment author: Sarokrae 16 July 2012 10:42:57AM *  1 point [-]

Exactly. You write down your observations for each day and then compare them to the list to see if you felt better on days when you were taking the actual pill.

Only if it's not too costly to check, of course, and sometimes it is.

Edit: I think gwern's done a number of self-trials, though I haven't looked at his exact methodology.

Edit again: In case I haven't been clear enough, I'm proposing a method to distinguish between "sugar pills that are magic" and "regular sugar pills".

Edit3: ninja'd