katydee comments on Rationality Quotes September 2012 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: Jayson_Virissimo 03 September 2012 05:18AM

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Comment author: katydee 02 September 2012 09:11:35AM *  2 points [-]

It's not easy to learn a new language. We are all used to speaking in a vague verbal language when expressing degrees of belief. In daily life, this language serves us quite well and the damage caused by its ambiguity is minor, but for important decisions it is helpful to use numbers to express degrees of belief. It may be more difficult to elicit numbers, but it is much more efficient. We understand each other better, numerical expressions are more sensitive to small differences in our feelings, and in the end, our decision processes will be better.

From "An Elementary Approach to Thinking Under Uncertainty," by Ruth Beyth-Marom, Shlomith Dekel, Ruth Gombo, & Moshe Shaked.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 02 September 2012 07:12:41PM 2 points [-]

Or not.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 03 September 2012 09:41:21AM *  3 points [-]

Arguably, assigning a particular floating point number between 0.0 and 1.0 to represent subjective degrees of belief is a specialized skill and it could take years of practice in order to become fluent in numerical-probability-speak.* Another possibility is that it merely adds a kind of pseudo-precision without any benefit over natural language.

In any case, it seems to be an empirical question and so should be answered with empirical data. I guess we won't really know until we have a good-sized number of people using things such as PredictionBook for extended periods of time. I'll keep you posted.

*There does exist rigorously defined verbal probabilities, but as far as I know they haven't been used much since the Late Middle Ages/Early Modern Period.

Comment author: gwern 01 October 2012 12:53:51AM 1 point [-]

I'd like to see more on those verbal probabilities, having stated to use my own since few satisfactory existing versions.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 02 October 2012 11:23:40AM *  2 points [-]

Potest legistis linguam Latinam? If not, then you might want to read The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability before Pascal by James Franklin for an overview of the tradition I was referring to.

Comment author: gwern 02 October 2012 02:23:46PM 0 points [-]

I'll give it a look.

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