I'm struggling to understand anything technical on this website. I've enjoyed reading the sequences, and they have given me a lot to thing about. Still, I've read the introduction to Bayes theorem multiple times, and I simply can't grasp it. Even starting at the very beginning of the sequences I quickly get lost because there are references to programming and cognitive science which I simply do not understand.
Thinking about it, I realized that this might be a common concern. There are probably plenty of people who've looked at various more-or-less technical or jargony Less Wrong posts, tried understanding them, and then given up (without posting a comment explaining their confusion).
So I figured that it might be good to have a thread where you can ask for explanations for any Less Wrong post that you didn't understand and would like to, but don't want to directly comment on for any reason (e.g. because you're feeling embarassed, because the post is too old to attract much traffic, etc.). In the spirit of various Stupid Questions threads, you're explicitly encouraged to ask even for the kinds of explanations that you feel you "should" get even yourself, or where you feel like you could get it if you just put in the effort (but then never did).
You can ask to have some specific confusing term or analogy explained, or to get the main content of a post briefly summarized in plain English and without jargon, or anything else. (Of course, there are some posts that simply cannot be explained in non-technical terms, such as the ones in the Quantum Mechanics sequence.) And of course, you're encouraged to provide explanations to others!
So, let's get back to a more basic question, and I apologize for how pedantic this will sound. I really don't intend it that way. I just need to know something about your approach here. Anyway: do you think we have any reason to believe that an apple when dropped will, ceteris paribus, fall to the ground?
Yes, but with a big but.
We don't know what "all else equal" means. Inparticular it encompasses unknown and ununderstood phenomena. And because we can't replicate what we don't know (and for various other reasons) each apple dropping we do could in principle be dependant on some arcane detail of the universe. We coulde also very easy be driven to a situation where our beliefs of solidity would be more relevant/override the understanding of falling (such as having the apple on a table). Also the mental structures used in that assesment would be sus... (read more)