Douglas_Knight comments on Probability, knowledge, and meta-probability - Less Wrong

38 Post author: David_Chapman 17 September 2013 12:02AM

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Tags: decision_theory jaynes multi-armed_bandit strategy probability meta-probability epistemology

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Comment author: Douglas_Knight 20 September 2013 03:51:47PM 1 point [-]

The “meta-probability” approach I’ve taken here is the Ap distribution of E. T. Jaynes. I find it highly intuitive, but it seems to have had almost no influence or application in practice. We’ll see later that it has some problems, which might explain this.

I don't see how this differs from how anyone else ever handles this problem. I hope you explain the difference in this example, before going on to other examples.

Comment author: David_Chapman 20 September 2013 05:41:03PM 0 points [-]

Can you point me at some other similar treatments of the same problem? Thanks!

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 20 September 2013 06:32:58PM 1 point [-]

I ask you for a different treatment, so you ask me for a similar treatment?
No, I don't see the point. Doesn't my request make sense, regardless of whether we agree on what is similar or different?

Comment author: TheOtherDave 20 September 2013 07:44:39PM 2 points [-]

FWIW, I understood David to be requesting some specific examples of how members of the set "everyone else ever" handle this problem, which on your account is the same as how Jaynes handles it, in order to more clearly see the similarity you reference.

Comment author: David_Chapman 21 September 2013 04:35:31AM 1 point [-]

Thanks, yes! I.e. who is this "everyone else," and where do they treat it the same way Jaynes does? I'm not aware of any examples, but I have only a basic knowledge of probability theory.

It's certainly possible that this approach is common, but Jaynes wasn't ignorant, and he seemed to think it was a new and unusual and maybe controversial idea, so I kind of doubt it.

Also, I should say that I have no dog in this fight at all; I'm not advocating "Jaynes is the greatest thing since sliced bread", for example. (Although that does seem to be the opinion of some LW writers.)

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