[extropy-chat] Coin Flip Paradox

[Jef Allbright]

Okay, I'm done.
- Jef

> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-
> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of gts
> Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 12:19 PM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Coin Flip Paradox
> 
> On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:57:06 -0500, Jef Allbright
> <jef at jefallbright.net>
> wrote:
> 
> > it appears that as an instructor, Michael Resnik had constructed
> > a strawman with the Principle of Insufficient Reason
> 
> Not a strawman at all!
> 
> Either the principle is a sound approach to decision-making under
> conditions of ignorance, or else it's not. He demonstrated with a
> very
> simple and general problem that it's not.
> 
> > .... demonstrating that no method, including the PI, is capable
> of
> > providing
> > good priors under conditions of ignorance.
> 
> Exactly!!! That is exactly what he demonstrated, at least
> concerning the
> PI.
> 
> So you can throw it out as logical principle. Use it when you
> absolutely
> must, but don't imagine you're doing something with a firm basis in
> logic.
> Also you needn't think you're necessarily doing something illogical
> if you
> set your priors by some other method. It's okay for Bayesians to
> use
> different priors, as the subjectivists have known all along.
> 
> -gts
> 
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