“I am 75% confident that hypothesis X is true—but if X really is true, I expect to gather more and more evidence in favor of X in the future, such that I expect my probability estimate of X to eventually exceed 99%. Of course, right now I am only 75% confident that X is true in the first place, so there is a 25% (subjective) chance that my probability estimate of X will decrease toward 0 instead of increasing toward 1.”
Another way to put this: I expect a large chance of a small update upwards, and a small chance of a large update downwards. This still conserves expected evidence.
On net, I expect to end up back where I started, EVEN though there’s a higher chance I’ll get evidence confirming my view.
“I am 75% confident that hypothesis X is true—but if X really is true, I expect to gather more and more evidence in favor of X in the future, such that I expect my probability estimate of X to eventually exceed 99%. Of course, right now I am only 75% confident that X is true in the first place, so there is a 25% (subjective) chance that my probability estimate of X will decrease toward 0 instead of increasing toward 1.”
That makes perfect sense. And you should probably make BOTH halves of the statement: I expect to increase my estimate to 90% or decrease it to 20%.
Another way to put this: I expect a large chance of a small update upwards, and a small chance of a large update downwards. This still conserves expected evidence.
On net, I expect to end up back where I started, EVEN though there’s a higher chance I’ll get evidence confirming my view.