shminux comments on Open Thread, Jul. 27 - Aug 02, 2015 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: MrMind 27 July 2015 07:16AM

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Comment author: redding 28 July 2015 12:20:02PM 1 point [-]

There are different levels of impossible.

Imagine a universe with an infinite number of identical rooms, each of which contains a single human. Each room is numbered outside: 1, 2, 3, ...

The probability of you being in the first 100 rooms is 0 - if you ever have to make an expected utility calculation, you shouldn't even consider that chance. On the other hand, it is definitely possible in the sense that some people are in those first 100 rooms.

If you consider the probability of you being in room Q, this probability is also 0. However, it (intuitively) feels "more" impossible.

I don't really think this line of thought leads anywhere interesting, but it definitely violated my intuitions.

Comment author: shminux 28 July 2015 02:28:37PM *  2 points [-]
Comment author: redding 29 July 2015 09:17:31PM 0 points [-]

Could you recommend a good source from which to learn measure theory?