Now, to restate the original "thing" we were trying to honestly say we had a prior for:

Suppose you know that there are a certain number of planets, N. You are unsure about the truth of a statement Q. If Q is true, you put a high probability on life forming on a given arbitrary planet. If Q is false, you put a low probability on this. You have a prior probability for Q.

Does this work, given this and our response?

We do not actually have a prior for Q, but we have a rough prior for a highly related question Q', which can be transformed likely fairly easily into a prior for Q using mechanical methods. So let's do that "non-mechanically" by saying:

1. If we successfully generate a prior for Q, that part is OK.
2. If Q is false, (::<- previously transformed into the more interesting and still consistent with a possible meaning for this part question "if Q is not-true") :: use "If Q is not-true" as this proposition, then it is OK. But also consider the original meaning of "false" meaning "not true at all" meaning logically has 0 mass assigned to it. If we do both, this part is OK.
3. If Q is true, you put a high probability on life forming on a given arbitrary planet. This was the evidential question which we said the article was not mainly about, so we would continue reasoning from this point by reading the rest of the article until the next point at which we expect an update to occur to our prior; however if we do the rest of the steps (1-end here) then these updates can be relatively short and quick (as it's just, in a technical sense, a multiplication. This can definitely be done by simultaneous (not just concurrent) algorithms). ::-> (predicted continuation point)
4. You are unsure about the truth of a statement Q. OK.
5. Suppose you know that there are a certain number of planets, N. This directly implies that we are only interested in the finite case and not the infinite case for N. However, we may have to keep the infinite case in mind. OK.

-> [Now to be able to say "we have a prior," we have to write the continuation from 3. until the meaning of both

1. "what the article is about" becomes clear (so we can disambiguate the intended meanings of 1-5 and re-check)
2. We recognise that the prior can be constructed, and can roughly describe what it would look like.

From our previous response, our prior for finite N and a small amount of evidence was that "life is unlikely" (because there were two separate observationally consistent ways which resulted in 'the same' answer in some equivalence or similarity sense). For infinite N, it looks like "n is of lower dimension in some way" (dimension here meaning "bigness") than N.

Now we have a prior for both, so we can try to convert back to a prior for the original proposition Q, which was:

You are unsure about the truth of a statement Q. If Q is true, you put a high probability on life forming on a given arbitrary planet. If Q is false, you put a low probability on this.

Our prior is that Q is false.]

In retrospect, the preceding (now in square brackets, which were edited in) could be considered a continuation of 3. So we are OK in all 5 ways, and we have a prior, so we can continue responding to the article.

(To be continued in reply)

am maybe too enthusiastic in general for things being 'well organized'.

I don't think so. :)

Yes. Although Moloch is "kind of" all powerful, there are also different levels of "all powerful" so there can be "more all powerful" things. :)

Would you be able to expand on those? I thought they were quite apt.

They both exist in different realms, however Elua's is bigger so by default Elua would win, but only if people care to live more in Elua's realm than Moloch's. Getting the map-territory distinction right is pretty important I think.

Accidents, if not too damaging, are net positive because they allow you to learn more & cause you to slow down. If you are wrong about what is good/right/whatever, and you think you are a good person, then you'd want to be corrected. So if you're having a lot of really damaging accidents in situations where you could reasonably be expected to control, that's probably not too good, but "reasonably be expected to control" is a very high standard. What I'm very explicitly not saying here is that the "just-world" hypothesis is true in any way; accidents *are* accidents, it's just that they can be net positive.

It's more effective to retain more values since physics is basically unitary (at least up to the point we know) so you'll have more people on your side if you retain the values of past people. So we'd be able to defeat this Moloch if we're careful.