conchis comments on The Proper Use of Doubt - Less Wrong

34 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 06 August 2007 08:29PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (30)

Sort By: Old

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: conchis 06 August 2007 10:13:50PM 3 points [-]

"- An unresolved doubt is a null-op. - An uninvestigated doubt might as well not exist."

Perhaps we're just using words differently, but I'm not sure I agree with either of these. I would have thought that recognising valid doubts would be useful in making decisions, even when the information necessary to resolve such doubts with certainty may not be available; and in some cases, the gains in terms of improved decision-making may not be worth the cost of investigating and resolving the doubt.

I think I'm using "doubt" as almost coextensive with "uncertainty", and I'm not entirely sure what else it would mean, but do you mean something else?