Well, you can switch around the order in which you update anyway, so that’s not really the important part.
My point was that in most cases, the outside view gives a much weaker prediction than the inside view taken at face value. In these cases using both views is pretty much the same as using the inside view by itself, so advocating “use the outside view!” would be better translated as “don’t trust yourself to use the inside view!”
Okay, rephrase: Suppose I pull a crazy idea out of my hat and scream “I am 100% confident that every human being on earth will grow a tail in the next five minutes!” Then I am making a very forceful claim, which is not well-supported by the evidence.
The idea is that the outside view generally makes less forceful claims than the inside view—allowing for a wider range of possible outcomes, not being very detailed or precise or claiming a great deal of confidence. If we were to take both outside view and inside view perfectly at face value, giving them equal credence, the sum of the outside view and the inside view would be mostly the inside view. So saying that the sum of the outside view and the inside view equals mostly the outside view must imply that we think the inside view is not to be trusted in the strength it says its claims should have, which is indeed the argument being made.
Well, you can switch around the order in which you update anyway, so that’s not really the important part.
My point was that in most cases, the outside view gives a much weaker prediction than the inside view taken at face value. In these cases using both views is pretty much the same as using the inside view by itself, so advocating “use the outside view!” would be better translated as “don’t trust yourself to use the inside view!”
I can’t imagine what evidence you think there is for your claim “in most cases, the outside view gives a much weaker prediction.”
Weakness as in the force of the claim, not how well-supported the claim may be.
This confuses me. What force of a claim should I feel, that does not come from it being well-supported?
Okay, rephrase: Suppose I pull a crazy idea out of my hat and scream “I am 100% confident that every human being on earth will grow a tail in the next five minutes!” Then I am making a very forceful claim, which is not well-supported by the evidence.
The idea is that the outside view generally makes less forceful claims than the inside view—allowing for a wider range of possible outcomes, not being very detailed or precise or claiming a great deal of confidence. If we were to take both outside view and inside view perfectly at face value, giving them equal credence, the sum of the outside view and the inside view would be mostly the inside view. So saying that the sum of the outside view and the inside view equals mostly the outside view must imply that we think the inside view is not to be trusted in the strength it says its claims should have, which is indeed the argument being made.
Thank you, I understand that much better.