bartimaeus comments on Open Thread, May 1-14, 2013 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: whpearson 01 May 2013 10:28PM

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Comment author: bartimaeus 10 May 2013 07:54:08PM 2 points [-]

Absence of Evidence is directly tied to having a probabilistic model of reality. There might be an inferential gap when people refer you to it, because on its own the argument doesn't seem strong. But it's a direct consequence of Bayesian reasoning, which IS a strong argument.

(Just to clarify: I didn't mean to accuse you of ignorance, and I sympathize with having everyone spam you with links to the same material, which must be aggravating.)

Comment author: [deleted] 10 May 2013 08:02:58PM 0 points [-]

It's certainly an important point, but I think that atheists tend to overuse it. I can't begin to criticize Bayesian reasoning, especially not here.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 14 May 2013 03:41:24AM 1 point [-]

Bayesian probabilistic reasoning is the unique (up to isomorphism) generalization of Aristotelian (two-valued) logic to reasoning about uncertainty. You can't throw it out without inconsistency.

Comment author: [deleted] 14 May 2013 08:21:18AM -1 points [-]

I never tried to. I know exactly how Bayes' Theorem is mathematically derived and I won't try to contest that.