btrettel comments on Open thread, Aug. 10 - Aug. 16, 2015 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: MrMind 10 August 2015 07:29AM

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Comment author: btrettel 11 August 2015 09:59:36PM 0 points [-]

Yes, that's one way to put it. The main restriction would be to pick "important" predictions, whatever "important" means here.

One other idea I just had would be to make a list of general questions you can ask about anything along with a list of categories to apply these questions to.

Comment author: Lumifer 12 August 2015 03:27:43PM *  1 point [-]

The main restriction would be to pick "important" predictions, whatever "important" means here.

I don't know if there is any useful algorithm here. The space of possibilities is vast, black swans lurk at the outskirts, and Murphy is alive and well :-/

You can try doing something like this:

  • List the important (to you) events or outcomes in some near future
  • List everything that could potentially affect these events or outcomes.

and you get your universe of "events of interest" to assign probabilities to.

I doubt this will be a useful exercise in practice, though.

Comment author: btrettel 12 August 2015 04:01:41PM 0 points [-]

Yes, upon reflection, it seems that something along these lines is probably the best I can do, and you're right that it probably will not be useful.

I'll give it a try and evaluate whether I'd want to try again.