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Lumifer comments on Open Thread, Apr. 20 - Apr. 26, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: Gondolinian 20 April 2015 12:02AM

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Comment author: Lumifer 27 April 2015 04:30:43PM 0 points [-]

Pr(decline oracle's request) in the denominator, and that's zero.

That's a forward-looking probability and is certainly not zero.

In the absence of evidence you just fall back on your prior.

Comment author: DanielLC 27 April 2015 07:13:33PM 0 points [-]

In order to get Error: Divide By Zero, you have to be using a particular kind of decision theory and assume P(decline oracle's request) = 0.

Comment author: Jiro 27 April 2015 05:35:38PM 0 points [-]

Your prior for what?

Comment author: Lumifer 27 April 2015 05:49:36PM 0 points [-]

For the baseline, "underlying" probability of the oracle's request being declined. Roughly speaking, if you have never seen X happen, it does not mean that X will never happen (=has a probability of zero).

This assumes you're a passive observer, by the way -- if you are actively making a decision whether to accept or decline the request you can't apply Bayesian probabilities to your own actions.