Re: tautology

From: Russell Standish <R.Standish.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 13:25:11 +1000 (EST)

>
> On Mon, 18 Oct 1999, Russell Standish wrote:
> > > Your above comments make no sense to me. Perhaps you should
> > > attempt to clarify them. I will say that you seem to have missed the
> > > point of the Bayesian analysis. It is useful because the ASSA predicts
> > > that one is unlikely to observe a large age for oneself. The fact that
> > > the ASSA does so is supremely obvious from the fact that at large ages the
> > > measure is smaller.
> >
> > It is _not_ supremely obvious. The only thing that is obvious is what
> > it say about _external_ reality - i.e. it predicts one is unlikely to
> > see a large age for someone else. It says absolutely nothing about
> > what you observe about yourself.
>
> If I look at Joe Shmoe's age, why is it (with the ASSA) unlikely
> for me to see a large age? Because the measure of Jack Mallahs that see
> that Joe Shmoe has a large age is small.
> If I look at Jack Mallah's age, why is it (with the ASSA) unlikely
> for me to see a large age? Because the measure of Jack Mallahs that see
> that Jack Mallah has a large age is small.
> What's the difference?

The measure of Jack Mallah is irrelevant to this situation. The
probability of Jack Mallah seeing Joe Schmoe with a large age is
proportional to Joe Schmoe's measure - because - Joe Schmoe is
independent of Jack Mallah. However, Jack Mallah is clearly not
independent of Jack Mallah, and predictions of the probability of Jack
Mallah seeing a Jack Mallah with large age cannot be made with the
existing assumptions of ASSA. The claim is that RSSA has the
additional assumptions required.


>
> - - - - - - -
> Jacques Mallah (jqm1584.domain.name.hidden)
> Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate
> "I know what no one else knows" - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum
> My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
>
>



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Dr. Russell Standish Director
High Performance Computing Support Unit,
University of NSW Phone 9385 6967
Sydney 2052 Fax 9385 6965
Australia R.Standish.domain.name.hidden
Room 2075, Red Centre http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
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Received on Tue Oct 19 1999 - 20:29:27 PDT

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