[extropy-chat] Re: Bad Bayesian - no biscuit!

[Russell Wallace]

On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 11:40:21 -0500, Eliezer Yudkowsky
<sentience at pobox.com> wrote:
> To say that it can have utility to mentally extrapolate the consequences of
> a premise is not the same as believing that premise.  One must be careful
> here; if you act like you believe something, or if you end up emotionally
> attached to the belief, I don't credit you as a rationalist just because
> you claim you didn't believe you would win the lottery, you bought the
> tickets "for the drama" of it, etc.  People with a fragmentary
> understanding of the Way sometimes anticipate that they can pass as
> rationalists by claiming not to believe the things they anticipate.

By that logic, is it not even more irrational to buy a movie ticket?
After all, the probability that you will ever encounter the Death
Star, the One Ring or Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is
even lower than the probability that you will win the lottery.

What's that, you claim you don't believe you'll encounter them in real
life, you're just watching the movie "for the drama" of it etc? Hmm,
what was that about people with a fragmentary understanding of the
Way? ^.~

- Russell