Eliezer may not approve of it, but almost all of the literature uses the phrase “updating a prior” to mean exactly the type of sequential learning from evidence that Eliezer discusses. I prefer to think of it as ‘updating a prior’. Bayes’ theorem tells you that data is an operator on the space of probability distributions, converting prior information into posterior information. I think it’s helpful to think of that process as ‘updating’ so that my prior actually changes to something new before the next piece of information comes my way.
Eliezer may not approve of it, but almost all of the literature uses the phrase “updating a prior” to mean exactly the type of sequential learning from evidence that Eliezer discusses. I prefer to think of it as ‘updating a prior’. Bayes’ theorem tells you that data is an operator on the space of probability distributions, converting prior information into posterior information. I think it’s helpful to think of that process as ‘updating’ so that my prior actually changes to something new before the next piece of information comes my way.