PeterisP comments on Infinite Certainty - Less Wrong

32 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 09 January 2008 06:49AM

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Comment author: PeterisP 19 December 2010 03:48:50PM *  1 point [-]

I perceive the intention of the original assertion is that even in this case you would still fail in making 10.000 independent statements of such sort - i.e., in trying to do it, you are quite likely somehow make a mistake at least once, say, by a typo, a slip of the tongue, accidentally ommitting 'not' or whatever. All it takes to fail on a statement like "53 to be prime" all it takes is for you to not notice that it actually says '51 is prime' or make some mistake when dividing.

Any random statement of yours has a 'ceiling' of x-nines accuracy.

Even any random statement of yours where it is known that you aren't rushed, tired, on medication, sober, not sleepy, had a chance and intent to review it several times still has some accuracy ceiling, a couple orders of magnitude higher, but still definitely not 1.