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gjm comments on Born rule or universal prior? - Less Wrong Discussion

7 Post author: cousin_it 29 June 2011 11:27PM

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Comment author: gjm 30 June 2011 07:43:29AM 3 points [-]

I am entirely unconvinced that the universal prior really does imply that you should say "substantially less than 1 million".

It seems to me that using the universal prior leads to a probability distribution in which most of the probability goes to hypotheses that take quantum physics seriously, in which case we expect that when you flip a quantum coin a million times we end up with (roughly) 2^1000000 versions of you, almost all of whom see bitstrings with K-complexity about 1 million.

The universal prior should probably also still give some probability to hypotheses in which the universe works non-quantum-mechanically and you get a K-complexity well below 1000000. But not very much.

Comment author: cousin_it 30 June 2011 08:40:15AM *  -1 points [-]

It seems to me that using the universal prior leads to a probability distribution in which most of the probability goes to hypotheses that take quantum physics seriously

That isn't true, I think. See my reply to Perplexed.