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Vaniver comments on Group Rationality Diary, March 22 to April 4 - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: gjm 23 March 2015 12:17PM

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Comment author: Vaniver 23 March 2015 09:44:37PM 1 point [-]

Generate your random hexagrams with a computer. (You probably already do.)

I considered this, and I probably will if I do it long-term (though, really, it'll need to be a phone app since I don't boot up my home computer until the late afternoon anyway), but for now I'm flipping coins.

I will note, though, that my translation has slightly more structure than just rolling a d64; two hexagrams uniquely specify the relevant reading. (It's rolling 6d8, but doesn't have the full 8^6 potential outcomes; it's actually only 4^6.) This means the Birthday Problem happens over a much longer timescale. I might get the same primary hexagram tomorrow, which is the same general problem/situation/perspective, but the actual advice may change. (Because the fourth line was generated in the 1/4th case instead of the 3/4ths case, I was advised to seek union, which I interpreted by seeking a meeting with a mentor that I wouldn't otherwise have sought, and he in turn advised me to set up other meetings that I otherwise wouldn't have sought.)

So it may be the case that I can figure out that the fourth line should be more yang than yin, or more likely to be reversed than 1/4, or so on, but I think if I model at the level of individual hexagrams it'll be a long, long time before I've shifted the priors enough to have an effect. (Of course, one could set up a hierarchical model that takes all this into account, and with more people using such a system the time required for data collection would decrease.)

Comment author: gjm 23 March 2015 09:59:25PM 1 point [-]

two hexagrams

Ah, OK, that would indeed make a difference. My apologies for my ignorance. Still, if you have a primary and a secondary hexagram, maybe it suffices to look at the "effectiveness" of the primary hexagram only.