From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Fri Jun 20 2003 - 14:12:03 MDT
Robin Hanson wrote:
> At 02:20 PM 6/20/2003 -0700, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
>
>> The process for choosing ordinary beliefs is dependent on a large
>> amount of data collected during phylogeny, as well as some input from
>> ontogeny over many years. As such, it is the expression of
>> adaptation to prevailing conditions. How would you then define "bias"
>> in this context? What would be the meaning of a fully non-biased
>> approach to formation of beliefs?
>
> We were talking about people using self-deception instead of
> dishonesty. For example, instead of lying and saying you are a great
> worker, you make yourself believe it even when your evidence goes
> against this belief. "Bias" mean processes that produce such systematic
> deviations.
Why should systematic deviations in beliefs be any more or less difficult
to detect than systematic deviations in statements? Both are information,
both have probability distributions, both are produced by causal
mechanisms. What makes one information-theoretically different from the
other?
-- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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