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Eugine_Nier comments on Connecting Your Beliefs (a call for help) - Less Wrong Discussion

24 Post author: lukeprog 20 November 2011 05:18AM

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Comment author: Giles 20 November 2011 05:44:12PM 3 points [-]

we should be all the more skeptical of our far beliefs, which are the most susceptible to bias.

Just out of interest... assume my far beliefs take the form of a probability distribution of possible future outcomes. How can I be "skeptical" of that? Given that something will happen in the future, all I can do is update in the direction of a different probability distribution.

In other words, which direction am I likely to be biased in?

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 20 November 2011 06:31:12PM 7 points [-]

In other words, which direction am I likely to be biased in?

In the direction of overconfidence, i.e., assigning too much probability mass to your highest probability theory.