Lumifer comments on Open Thread, Apr. 20 - Apr. 26, 2015 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: Gondolinian 20 April 2015 12:02AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (350)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Jiro 27 April 2015 05:35:38PM 0 points [-]

Your prior for what?

Comment author: Lumifer 27 April 2015 05:49:36PM 0 points [-]

For the baseline, "underlying" probability of the oracle's request being declined. Roughly speaking, if you have never seen X happen, it does not mean that X will never happen (=has a probability of zero).

This assumes you're a passive observer, by the way -- if you are actively making a decision whether to accept or decline the request you can't apply Bayesian probabilities to your own actions.