Tom_Breton comments on What Evidence Filtered Evidence? - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (38)
Where do you get that A is "almost certain" from? I just said the prior probability of B was "low". I don't think that's a reasonable restatement of what I said.
It doesn't seem to me that excluding the possibility that he has more points should have that effect.
Consider the case where CA is artificially restricted to raising a given number of points. By common sense, for a generous allotment this is nearly equivalent to the original situation, yet you never learn anything new about how many points he has remaining.
You can argue that CA might still stop early when his argument is feeble, and thus you learn something. However, since you've stipulated that every point raises your probability estimate, he won't stop early. To make an argument without that assumption, we can ask about a situation where he is required to raise exactly N points and assume he can easily raise "filler" points.
ISTM at every juncture in the unrestricted and the generously restricted arguments, your probability estimate should be nearly the same, excepting only that you need compensate slightly less in the restricted case.
Now, there is a certain sense of two ways of saying the same thing, raising the probability per point (presumably cogent) but lowering it as a whole in compensation.
But once you begin hearing CA's argument, you know tautologically that you are hearing his argument, barring unusual circumstances that might still cause it not to be fully presented. I see no reason to delay accounting that information.