Open thread, Oct. 12 - Oct. 18, 2015

MrMind

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

Some random thoughts:

As a bounded agent, you have to be aware that it's physically impossible to consider all the hypotheses. When you encounter new evidence, you might think of a new hypothesis to promote that you hadn't thought of before - in fact, this is an unavoidable part of being a good bounded agent. So don't worry about coming up with the One True Prior ahead of time and then updating it - instead, try to plan for the most likely outcomes, but leave a "something else" category and be ready to change your mind.

And given that we're biased, when we make plans we're probably going to get some probabilities wrong - in this case, future events contain information about how one was biased. Try to learn about your own biases, which often means being more influenced by evidence than an unbiased agent.

If you still want to try reasoning probabilistically, I'd look into Tetlock's good judgment project and start planning how to practice my probability estimation. Oh, and check out the calibration game.