I’d think that how much mentioning a monster updates the probability that it exists depends on the context of mentioning the monster. Furthermore, mentioning it in the context of examples of probability should score particularly low in this regard.
Do you mean that if I bothered to write a short story about how I met the monster Ygafalkufeoinencfhncfc while hiking in remote mountains and how all the locals were like “Oooh, there is something there but we don’t talk about it”—in such a case you’d update your probabilities higher?
P.S. Oh, an now we have TWICE the amount of evidence for Ygafalkufeoinencfhncfc compared to what we had a few minutes ago. Can we extrapolate the trend? :D
If you wrote a short story about a monster, there’s some chance that the monster exists, there are legends about it, one of those legends made its way to you, and you then chose to use it in your story. Thus, if I never heard of the monster, then you wrote such a story and I had no further information about your story-writing process, that would indeed increase my estimate that the monster exists by a miniscule amount.
If you wrote the story specifically to prove a point in a lesswrong discussion about monster names that are pulled out of thin air, that would be further information, so my estimate wouldn’t increase in the same way.
Moreover, it’s not twice the evidence anyway, since the story and the lesswrong post aren’t independent.
Oh, an now we have TWICE the amount of evidence for Ygafalkufeoinencfhncfc compared to what we had a few minutes ago. Can we extrapolate the trend?
Note: It’s not a linear trend. If you mention the name one million times, it does not make it one million times as likely. Also, being mentioned one million times by the same person is not the same evidence as being mentioned by one million people, once by each. And even that is not a linear trend.
We have some misunderstanding here. My best guess is that you think evidence makes something likely, while the typical usage here is that evidence makes things more likely. An example: Imagine that according to your best knowledge, some thing X has a probability 0.000001. Now you get some new information E, and based on all the knowledge you have now, the probability of X is 0.000001001.
On one hand, the information E increased the probability of X from 0.000001to 0.000001001. This is what we mean by saying that E is an evidence for X. It made it more likely.
On the other hand, even the increased probability is pretty close to zero. Therefore, more likely does not imply likely or even worth considering seriously (you can imagine even more zeroes before the first nonzero digit).
Similarly, probability of Ygafalkufeoinencfhncfc is pretty close to zero, but not exactly zero. Mentioning it on a discussion forum (choosing this specific topic instead of other millions of topic that could have been chosen) slightly increases the probability (at the cost of those other topics that were not chosen to be mentioned). The change is very small, but technically it is an increase. That’s why we call it evidence for Ygafalkufeoinencfhncfc.
I’d think that how much mentioning a monster updates the probability that it exists depends on the context of mentioning the monster. Furthermore, mentioning it in the context of examples of probability should score particularly low in this regard.
Do you mean that if I bothered to write a short story about how I met the monster Ygafalkufeoinencfhncfc while hiking in remote mountains and how all the locals were like “Oooh, there is something there but we don’t talk about it”—in such a case you’d update your probabilities higher?
P.S. Oh, an now we have TWICE the amount of evidence for Ygafalkufeoinencfhncfc compared to what we had a few minutes ago. Can we extrapolate the trend? :D
If you wrote a short story about a monster, there’s some chance that the monster exists, there are legends about it, one of those legends made its way to you, and you then chose to use it in your story. Thus, if I never heard of the monster, then you wrote such a story and I had no further information about your story-writing process, that would indeed increase my estimate that the monster exists by a miniscule amount.
If you wrote the story specifically to prove a point in a lesswrong discussion about monster names that are pulled out of thin air, that would be further information, so my estimate wouldn’t increase in the same way.
Moreover, it’s not twice the evidence anyway, since the story and the lesswrong post aren’t independent.
Note: It’s not a linear trend. If you mention the name one million times, it does not make it one million times as likely. Also, being mentioned one million times by the same person is not the same evidence as being mentioned by one million people, once by each. And even that is not a linear trend.
Nobody said it was. In any case, I was talking about the amount of evidence, not about what does that imply in terms of belief probabilities.
A “linear trend” in probabilities would have big issues, of course, because there are hard caps at zero and one.
We have some misunderstanding here. My best guess is that you think evidence makes something likely, while the typical usage here is that evidence makes things more likely. An example: Imagine that according to your best knowledge, some thing X has a probability 0.000001. Now you get some new information E, and based on all the knowledge you have now, the probability of X is 0.000001001.
On one hand, the information E increased the probability of X from 0.000001to 0.000001001. This is what we mean by saying that E is an evidence for X. It made it more likely.
On the other hand, even the increased probability is pretty close to zero. Therefore, more likely does not imply likely or even worth considering seriously (you can imagine even more zeroes before the first nonzero digit).
Similarly, probability of Ygafalkufeoinencfhncfc is pretty close to zero, but not exactly zero. Mentioning it on a discussion forum (choosing this specific topic instead of other millions of topic that could have been chosen) slightly increases the probability (at the cost of those other topics that were not chosen to be mentioned). The change is very small, but technically it is an increase. That’s why we call it evidence for Ygafalkufeoinencfhncfc.
I understand the argument. I don’t accept it.
No. We can’t extrapolate a trend. That’s what”You cannot expect that future evidence will sway you in a particular direction” means.