Person A and B hold a belief about proposition X.
Person A has purposively sought out, and updated, on evidence related to X since childhood.
Person B has sat on her couch and played video games.
Yet both A and B have arrived at the same degree-of-belief in proposition X.
Does the Bayesian framework equip its adherents with an adequate account of how Person A should be more confident in her conclusion than Person B?
The only viable answer I can think of is that every reasoner should multiply every conclusion with some measure of epistemic confidence, and re-normalize. But I have not yet encountered such a pervasive account of confidence-measurement from leading Bayesian theorists.
If X is just a binary proposition that can be true or false once and for all, and A and B have arrived at the same degree-of-belief, they are equally confident. A has updated on evidence related to X since childhood, and found that it's perfectly balanced in either direction. The only way A can be said to be "more confident" than B is that A has seen a lot of evidence already, so she won't update her conclusion upon seeing the same evidence again; on the other hand, all evidence is new to B.
Things get more interesting if X is some sort of random ...
Previously: round 1, round 2, round 3
From the original thread:
Ask away!