crasshopper comments on A Priori - Less Wrong

32 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 October 2007 09:02PM

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Comment author: crasshopper 18 March 2008 03:50:00PM 1 point [-]

To distinguish the word "arbitrary" from "random", I think of an arbitrator—i.e., an outside judge chooses something. (Maybe this results in a uniform prior for me, if'n I don't know what she'll do. Or maybe I'm a mathematician and I choose to be ready for any choice that arbitrator might make.)

When I'm teaching linear algebra and explain arbitrary parameters to my students, I use exactly this metaphor. How many times does someone else have to come in and arbitrate the value of other variables, before you can tell the questioner what the answer is?