saturn comments on Bead Jar Guesses - Less Wrong

17 Post author: Alicorn 04 May 2009 06:59PM

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Comment author: Unknowns 02 June 2010 12:16:21PM 3 points [-]

Your probability of updating downwards should be (more or less; not exactly) equal to one minus your original probability, i.e. if your original probability is .25, your probability of updating downwards should be around .75. This is obvious, since if there is a one in four chance that the thing is so, there is a three out of four chance that you will find out that it is not so, when you find out whether it is so or not.

Conservation of expected evidence doesn't mean that the chance of updating upwards is equal to the chance of updating downwards. It also takes into account the quantity of the change; i.e. my probability is .25, and I update upwards, I will have to update three times as much as if I had updated downwards.

Comment author: saturn 04 June 2010 09:46:01PM 1 point [-]

You're right. Thanks.