From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Thu May 29 2003 - 16:13:55 MDT
Eliezer wrote:
> Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
>>
>> ### Certainly a quite complex article. I think that what you quoted
>> above means that the Bayesian would treat the output of another
>> Bayesian as data of the same validity as the output of his own
>> reasoning. If you know that a fellow Bayesian sincerely believes in
>> flying saucers, you have to believe in them, too, unless your priors
>> are wildly divergent ("having a memory of seeing a flying saucer as
>> clear as my memory of seeing my car is sufficient to profess belief
>> in flying saucers" vs. "no amount of subjective visual experience is
>> sufficient to profess belief in flying saucers"). If the honest
>> Bayesian says he saw a flying saucer, you have to believe him, or
>> else assume he is not Bayesian at all, or has a higher
>> visual/cortical malfunction rate than you (i.e. is less Bayesian
>> than you). Barring these doubts, you would become as convinced about
>> the existence of flying saucers as the person who actually saw them,
>> despite not having the direct sensory input that he had. In effect,
>> his beliefs are as valid an input for your future reasoning as your
>> own sensory and logical subsystem outputs.
>
> Bear in mind that one should distinguish between *real*, *genuine*
> Bayesians like AIXI, and mere Bayesian wannabes like every physically
> realized being in our Universe.
>
> Bear in mind also that the above result holds only if you believe with
> absolute certainty (itself a very non-Bayesian thing) that the
> Bayesian's reasoning processes are perfect.
### But why? If I believe with some reasonable certainty that the other
Bayesian is a perfect as myself, and then some more (to account for my lack
of absolute certainty that he is what I think he is), then I should still
assign the same level of trustworthiness to his beliefs as to mine.
-----------------------
>
> And finally, bear in mind that, given the above assumptions, we would
> not actually be confronted with a Bayesian saying he believed in
> flying saucers!
### But I've seen many!!
Mom made me sweep the shards, too, so I remember well.
Rafal
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