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MrMind comments on Does Evidence Have To Be Certain? - Less Wrong Discussion

0 Post author: potato 30 March 2016 10:32AM

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Comment author: MrMind 31 March 2016 07:17:03AM *  1 point [-]

Note that you can show, for every E, P(E|E) = 1 (the proof is left as an exercise). This means that yes, whatever you have to the right of the sign | is taken to be certain. Why is this so?

The main reason is that updating on evidence, in a sense, means translating your entire probability model to a possible world where that evidence is true. This is usually justified because you treat sensory data (readings from a gauge, the color of a ball extracted from an urn, etc.) as certainties. But nothing limits you to do this only for evidence in the sensorial meaning. You can also entertain the idea that a memory or a fictional fact is true and update your model accordingly.
By the same theorem, you can move in and out of that possible world: everything is controlled by P(E). If you divide any probability by P(E), you move in, if you multiply everything by P(E), you move out.