Brian_Jaress2 comments on My Bayesian Enlightenment - Less Wrong

25 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 05 October 2008 04:45PM

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

Comments (57)

Sort By: Old

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: Brian_Jaress2 05 October 2008 09:39:59PM 0 points [-]

Cat Dancer, I think by "no alternative," he means the case of two girls.

Of course the mathematician could say something like "none are boys," but the point is whether or not the two-girls case gets special treatment. If you ask "is at least one a boy?" then "no" means two girls and "yes" means anything else.

If the mathematician is just volunteering information, it's not divided up that way. When she says "at least one is a boy," she might be turning down a chance to say "at least one is a girl," and that changes things.

At least, I think that's what he's saying. Most of probability seems as awkward to me as frequentism seems to Eliezer.