anon15 comments on No Universally Compelling Arguments - Less Wrong

33 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 26 June 2008 08:29AM

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Comment author: anon15 26 June 2008 11:30:30AM 2 points [-]

Many philosophers are convinced that because you can in-principle construct a prior that updates to any given conclusion on a stream of evidence, therefore, Bayesian reasoning must be "arbitrary", and the whole schema of Bayesianism flawed, because it relies on "unjustifiable" assumptions, and indeed "unscientific", because you cannot force any possible journal editor in mindspace to agree with you.

Could you clarify what you mean here? From the POV of your own argument, Bayesian updating is simply one of many possible belief-revision systems. What's the difference between calling Bayesian reasoning an "engine of accuracy" because of its information-theoretic properties as you've done in the past and saying that any argument based on it ought to be universally compelling?