Lumifer comments on Open thread, 25-31 August 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Um. I was just making a point that "we know P(A & B) <= P(A)" is a true statement coming from math logic, while "if you add details to a story, it becomes less plausible" is a false statement coming from human interaction.
Not sure about your unrolling of the probabilities since P(B|A) = 1 which makes A and B essentially the same. If you want to express the whole thing in math logic terms you need notation as to who knows what.
My reading of polymer's statement is that he wasn't using "plausible" as a psychological term, but as a rough synonym for "probable". (polymer, if you're reading: Was I right?)
No, P(B|A) is a little less than 1 because Beth might have read the email carelessly, or forgotten bits of it.
[EDITED to add: If whoever downvoted this would care to explain what they found objectionable about it, I'd have more chance of fixing it. It looks obviously innocuous to me even on rereading. Thanks!]
I'm not quite sure what the following means:
I don't care whether it's false as a "human interaction". I care whether the idea can be modeled by probabilities.
Is my usage of the word plausible in this way really that confusing? I'd like to know why... Probable, likely, credible, plausible, are all (rough) synonyms to me.