I’m going to go out in the weeds, and simply point at places where probabilities are used all the time: betting.
will there be more than one winner of the XYZ Jackpot Lottery on this drawing?
who is going to win the superbowl?
what are the odds of the Buffalo Sabres making it to the playoffs?
who will win such and such boxing match?
which horse will win this race?
Odds are well understood in these environments, and by picking a sport that a person is only peripherally interested in, most of the mindkilling effects should be reduced to a non-dangerous level.
But isn’t the point to find something where it’s sort of unexpected to express the belief as a probability? I may have misunderstood Yvain’s intention, but I don’t think he was looking for examples where everybody already expresses them in probabilities.
I thought he was trying to figure out how to explain the important epistemological point that an empirical belief must be a probability (range somewhere 0-100%, usually not at either extreme), because a lot of people seem to treat a large category of empirical questions as “you think for a while, and then make up your mind”.
I’m not sure whether I’m being clear enough here, but perhaps I could at least make my position seem a little bit more likely by pointing out that it seems highly unlikely that Yvain would have made a whole discussion topic about this if answering it was as easy as simply pointing to a gigantic, well-known category of beliefs that are always expressed in probabilities. It would be like asking for an example math problem that uses exponents.
Actually I might have just thought of a much better way to put it. I think his intention was to find a good example to include in an attempt to explain the classic LW assertion that probability is not in the territory. Everybody knows that certain things are usually expressed in probabilities (like whether the coin will be heads or tails), but most people don’t realize that every thought process is a probability, and you can assign a probability to every belief depending on how likely you think it is that you thought through it properly.
In fact, maybe that invalidates me qualifying my writing earlier with just empirical beliefs. Isn’t it the view on here that every belief is a probability, because a probability can also be you gauging how likely it is for your thought process to be sound, rather than something in the territory? Can even a non-empirical question have a probability, just not one that one must come to via frequentist methods (testing a bunch of times and seeing the ratio)?
I don’t know any probability theory, so maybe I’m way off here. This post turned from a random observation to a winding attempt to grapple with some (perhaps easy) problems. Anybody who has any thoughts on the matter, it would be appreciated.
I’d say that the lottery, specifically those with a variable number of winners, are the best bet. There’s not a lot of emotional investment, unless the person expects themselves to win and a single winner is likely (and even then, if they believe > 90% odds that they’ll win, they’re quite probably a lost cause to begin with)
For those which rarely have winners and tend to just grow each week, “time until next winner” or the like would probably also work.
Sports/horses/gambling, by contrast, strike me as mind-killers for a lot of people.
I’m going to go out in the weeds, and simply point at places where probabilities are used all the time: betting.
will there be more than one winner of the XYZ Jackpot Lottery on this drawing?
who is going to win the superbowl?
what are the odds of the Buffalo Sabres making it to the playoffs?
who will win such and such boxing match?
which horse will win this race?
Odds are well understood in these environments, and by picking a sport that a person is only peripherally interested in, most of the mindkilling effects should be reduced to a non-dangerous level.
But isn’t the point to find something where it’s sort of unexpected to express the belief as a probability? I may have misunderstood Yvain’s intention, but I don’t think he was looking for examples where everybody already expresses them in probabilities.
I thought he was trying to figure out how to explain the important epistemological point that an empirical belief must be a probability (range somewhere 0-100%, usually not at either extreme), because a lot of people seem to treat a large category of empirical questions as “you think for a while, and then make up your mind”.
I’m not sure whether I’m being clear enough here, but perhaps I could at least make my position seem a little bit more likely by pointing out that it seems highly unlikely that Yvain would have made a whole discussion topic about this if answering it was as easy as simply pointing to a gigantic, well-known category of beliefs that are always expressed in probabilities. It would be like asking for an example math problem that uses exponents.
Actually I might have just thought of a much better way to put it. I think his intention was to find a good example to include in an attempt to explain the classic LW assertion that probability is not in the territory. Everybody knows that certain things are usually expressed in probabilities (like whether the coin will be heads or tails), but most people don’t realize that every thought process is a probability, and you can assign a probability to every belief depending on how likely you think it is that you thought through it properly.
In fact, maybe that invalidates me qualifying my writing earlier with just empirical beliefs. Isn’t it the view on here that every belief is a probability, because a probability can also be you gauging how likely it is for your thought process to be sound, rather than something in the territory? Can even a non-empirical question have a probability, just not one that one must come to via frequentist methods (testing a bunch of times and seeing the ratio)?
I don’t know any probability theory, so maybe I’m way off here. This post turned from a random observation to a winding attempt to grapple with some (perhaps easy) problems. Anybody who has any thoughts on the matter, it would be appreciated.
Nitpick: I think that most empirical beliefs are very close to the 0 or 100% ends, so much so that we don’t even feel any uncertainty.
That said, you make an excellent point and I think you’re right about Yvain’s goal here.
I’d say that the lottery, specifically those with a variable number of winners, are the best bet. There’s not a lot of emotional investment, unless the person expects themselves to win and a single winner is likely (and even then, if they believe > 90% odds that they’ll win, they’re quite probably a lost cause to begin with)
For those which rarely have winners and tend to just grow each week, “time until next winner” or the like would probably also work.
Sports/horses/gambling, by contrast, strike me as mind-killers for a lot of people.
Replied to the wrong comment. Sorry.