private_messaging comments on Rationality Quotes September 2013 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Vaniver 04 September 2013 05:02AM

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Comment author: private_messaging 30 September 2013 01:32:43PM *  1 point [-]

The actual reality either has this effect, or it does not. You can quantify your uncertainty with a number, that would require you to assign some a-priori probability, which you'll have to choose arbitrarily.

You can contrast this to a die roll which scrambles initial phase space, mapping (approximately but very close to) 1/6 of any physically small region of it to each number on the die, the 1/6 being an objective property of how symmetrical dies bounce.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 30 September 2013 01:36:32PM 0 points [-]

Such statements are about the world, in a framework of probability.

Comment author: private_messaging 30 September 2013 01:42:56PM *  1 point [-]

They are specific to your idiosyncratic choice of prior, I am not interested in hearing them (in the context of science), unlike the statements about the world.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 30 September 2013 04:35:06PM 0 points [-]

That knowledge is subjective doesn't mean that such statements are not about the world. Furthermore, such statements can (and sometimes do) have arguments for the priors...

By this standard, any 'statement about the world' ignores all of the uncertainty that actually applies. Science doesn't require you to sweep your ignorance under the rug.