I intended the claim posed here about tests and priors. It is posed as
p(A|X) = [p(X|A)p(A)]/[p(X|A)p(A) + p(X|~A)*p(~A)]
But does it make sense for that to be wrong? It is a theorem, unlike the statement 2+2=4. Maybe some sort of way to show that the axioms and definitions that are used to prove Baye's Theorem are inconsistent, which is a pretty clear kind of proof. I'm not sure anymore that what I said has meaning. Well, thanks for the help.
I benefit from believing people are nicer than they actually are.
I empathize with her here. I believe that it is in my advantage to act towards people the way I would act if they were nicer than they actually are. I'll try to parse that out. Let's say Alice is talking to Bob. Cindy, at a different time, also talks to Bob. Bob is a jerk; we assume he is not nice.
Do not have the audience be part of the group being tested. Pull in confederates off the street, and tell them about the test. Do not allow subjects to see each other's testing. Let's say now that the current subject is Alex. Alex prefers vanilla ice cream to chocolate ice cream. Now go through the anti-conformity training.
After the training, hold a break (still with just Alex and the confederates). Offer ice cream in chocolate, vanilla, and, say, mango. Have most (maybe about 80%) of the confederates go for the chocolate, 10% for the vanilla, and 10% for ...
Have you stopped beating your wife?
I'd just like to point out that there is a definite answer to this. If a person has never started beating his or her wife, then they cannot stop and the answer must be no. Is there a flaw in this reasoning? Or am I not using the common definitions?
Martin told Bob the building was on his left.
Here, too, I see a definite answer. The word "left" is possessed by the word "his." In the English language, the pronoun "his" (and similarly "him," "her," "it," etc.)...
What would you have had these biologists use instead? Would you prefer they had no model? It seems clear to me, though I may be wrong, that these scientists had a model (elan vital), and when later evidence came along (modern biology?), they discarded it in favor of a different model. Would you have them instead have picked a different model in the first place? Or have no model at all?
Ok so there's a good chance I'm just being an idiot here, but I feel like a multiple worlds kind of interpretation serves well here. If, as you say, "the coin is deterministic, [and] in the overwhelming measure of the MWI worlds it gives the same outcome," then I don't believe the coin is fair. And if the coin isn't fair, then of course I'm not giving Omega any money. If, on the other hand, the coin is fair, and so I have reason to believe that in roughly half of the worlds the coin landed on the other side and Omega posed the opposite question, then by giving Omega the $100 I'm giving the me in those other worlds $1000 and I'm perfectly happy to do that.