I’m not very experienced in such things, so this might be an oblivious question with an obvious answer. If so, sorry.
I understand that one of the foundations of LessWrong is Bayesian epistemology and reasoning. I’ve been looking into it, and it seems like the consequences of Bayes’ Theorem and similar explorations into probability theory have pretty basic/intuitive implications on rational thought. It seems like it all boils down to “update your beliefs based on evidence.” At the moment, I can’t see many groundbreaking or especially helpful findings.
There are a couple that are useful, though. “Making beliefs pay rent in anticipated experiences” is useful for ensuring that evidence is available to refine beliefs, and the “conservation of expected evidence” highlights the consequences of conditionality in ways that weren’t immediately obvious (e.g. supporting evidence for an already-strong hypothesis isn’t that useful, but contradicting evidence is—and the reverse is true for weak hypotheses).
What are some of the most valuable takeaways and implications from Bayesian epistemology? Why does it serve as the effective foundation of this website?
[Question] Consequences of Bayesian Epistemology?
I’m not very experienced in such things, so this might be an oblivious question with an obvious answer. If so, sorry.
I understand that one of the foundations of LessWrong is Bayesian epistemology and reasoning. I’ve been looking into it, and it seems like the consequences of Bayes’ Theorem and similar explorations into probability theory have pretty basic/intuitive implications on rational thought. It seems like it all boils down to “update your beliefs based on evidence.” At the moment, I can’t see many groundbreaking or especially helpful findings.
There are a couple that are useful, though. “Making beliefs pay rent in anticipated experiences” is useful for ensuring that evidence is available to refine beliefs, and the “conservation of expected evidence” highlights the consequences of conditionality in ways that weren’t immediately obvious (e.g. supporting evidence for an already-strong hypothesis isn’t that useful, but contradicting evidence is—and the reverse is true for weak hypotheses).
What are some of the most valuable takeaways and implications from Bayesian epistemology? Why does it serve as the effective foundation of this website?