Sequence classic: "I don’t think you could get up to 99.99% confidence for assertions like “53 is a prime number.” - eviltoast
  • titotal@awful.systemsOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    I roll a fair 100 sided dice.

    Eliezer asks me to state my confidence that I won’t roll a 1.

    I say I am 99% confident I won’t roll a 1, using basic math.

    Eliezer says “AHA, you idiot, I checked all of your past predictions and when you predicted something with confidence 99%, it only happened 90% of the time! So you can’t say you’re 99% confident that you won’t roll a 1”

    I am impressed by the ability of my past predictions to affect the roll of a dice, and promptly run off to become a wizard.

    • Sailor Sega Saturn@awful.systems
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Ah but the machine gods could be tinkering with your neural wiring to make you think you’re rolling a die when in reality the universe is nothing but the color pink. That’s right, reality is nothing but a shade of Fuchsia and dice don’t actually exist. You should take this possibility into account when adjusting your priors for some reason.

      Epistemic Status: Barbie.