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Bayesianism

TagLast edit: Jun 18, 2023, 6:11 AM by tgrecojs

Bayesianism is the broader philosophy inspired by Bayes’ theorem. The core claim behind all varieties of Bayesianism is that probabilities are subjective degrees of belief—often operationalized as willingness to bet.

See also: Bayes theorem, Bayesian probability, Radical Probabilism, Priors, Rational evidence, Probability theory, Decision theory, Lawful intelligence, Bayesian Conspiracy.

This stands in contrast to other interpretations of probability, which attempt greater objectivity. The frequentist interpretation of probability has a focus on repeatable experiments; probabilities are the limiting frequency of an event if you performed the experiment an infinite number of times.

Another contender is the propensity interpretation, which grounds probability in the propensity for things to happen. A perfectly balanced 6-sided die would have a 16 propensity to land on each side. A propensity theorist sees this as a basic fact about dice not derived from infinite sequences of experiments or subjective viewpoints.

Note how both of these alternative interpretations ground the meaning of probability in an external objective fact which cannot be directly accessed.

As a consequence of the subjective interpretation of probability theory, Bayesians are more inclined to apply Bayes’ Theorem in practical statistical inference. The primary example of this is statistical hypothesis testing. Frequentists take the application of Bayes’ Theorem to be inappropriate, because “the probability of a hypothesis” is meaningless: a hypothesis is either true or false; you cannot define a repeated experiment in which it is sometimes true and sometimes false, so you cannot assign it an intermediate probability.

Bayesianism & Rationality

Bayesians conceive rationality as a technical codeword used by cognitive scientists to mean “rational”. Bayesian probability theory is the math of epistemic rationality, Bayesian decision theory is the math of instrumental rationality. Right up there with cognitive bias as an absolutely fundamental concept on Less Wrong.

Other usages

The term “Bayesian” may also refer to an ideal rational agent implementing precise, perfect Bayesian probability theory and decision theory (see, for example, Aumann’s agreement theorem).

Ap­prox­i­mately Bayesian Rea­son­ing: Knigh­tian Uncer­tainty, Good­hart, and the Look-Else­where Effect

RogerDearnaleyJan 26, 2024, 3:58 AM
16 points
2 comments11 min readLW link

Prob­a­bil­ity is in the Mind

Eliezer YudkowskyMar 12, 2008, 4:08 AM
144 points
193 comments6 min readLW link

Search­ing for Bayes-Structure

Eliezer YudkowskyFeb 28, 2008, 10:01 PM
66 points
49 comments5 min readLW link

What is Bayesi­anism?

Kaj_SotalaFeb 26, 2010, 7:43 AM
120 points
218 comments4 min readLW link

The Se­cond Law of Ther­mo­dy­nam­ics, and Eng­ines of Cognition

Eliezer YudkowskyFeb 27, 2008, 12:48 AM
203 points
76 comments9 min readLW link

Chang­ing the Defi­ni­tion of Science

Eliezer YudkowskyMay 18, 2008, 6:07 PM
32 points
30 comments2 min readLW link

Bayesian Injustice

Kevin DorstDec 14, 2023, 3:44 PM
124 points
10 comments6 min readLW link
(kevindorst.substack.com)

[Question] What does it mean for an event or ob­ser­va­tion to have prob­a­bil­ity 0 or 1 in Bayesian terms?

Noosphere89Sep 17, 2024, 5:28 PM
1 point
22 comments1 min readLW link

[Question] Change My Mind: Thirders in “Sleep­ing Beauty” are Just Do­ing Episte­mol­ogy Wrong

DragonGodOct 16, 2024, 10:20 AM
8 points
67 comments6 min readLW link

Why Can’t We Hy­poth­e­size After the Fact?

David UdellFeb 26, 2025, 10:41 PM
40 points
3 comments2 min readLW link

Prac­tic­ing Bayesian Episte­mol­ogy with “Two Boys” Prob­a­bil­ity Puzzles

LironJan 2, 2025, 4:42 AM
43 points
14 comments6 min readLW link

Bayesian Rea­son­ing on Maps

SjlverJan 22, 2025, 10:45 AM
4 points
0 comments4 min readLW link
(blog.purpureus.net)

Neu­ral un­cer­tainty es­ti­ma­tion re­view ar­ti­cle (for al­ign­ment)

Charlie SteinerDec 5, 2023, 8:01 AM
74 points
3 comments11 min readLW link

Beau­tiful Probability

Eliezer YudkowskyJan 14, 2008, 7:19 AM
109 points
123 comments6 min readLW link

Trust in Math

Eliezer YudkowskyJan 15, 2008, 4:25 AM
23 points
51 comments3 min readLW link

Trust in Bayes

Eliezer YudkowskyJan 29, 2008, 11:12 PM
40 points
28 comments8 min readLW link

Prob­a­bil­ity is Sub­jec­tively Objective

Eliezer YudkowskyJul 14, 2008, 9:16 AM
43 points
72 comments11 min readLW link

Qual­i­ta­tively Confused

Eliezer YudkowskyMar 14, 2008, 5:01 PM
63 points
85 comments4 min readLW link

Per­pet­ual Mo­tion Beliefs

Eliezer YudkowskyFeb 27, 2008, 8:22 PM
76 points
44 comments3 min readLW link

My Bayesian Enlightenment

Eliezer YudkowskyOct 5, 2008, 4:45 PM
72 points
65 comments7 min readLW link

A Priori

Eliezer YudkowskyOct 8, 2007, 9:02 PM
86 points
133 comments4 min readLW link

Pri­ors as Math­e­mat­i­cal Objects

Eliezer YudkowskyApr 12, 2007, 3:24 AM
51 points
20 comments4 min readLW link

No One Can Ex­empt You From Ra­tion­al­ity’s Laws

Eliezer YudkowskyOct 7, 2007, 5:24 PM
132 points
53 comments3 min readLW link

Ter­mi­nal Values and In­stru­men­tal Values

Eliezer YudkowskyNov 15, 2007, 7:56 AM
116 points
46 comments10 min readLW link

Lawful Uncertainty

Eliezer YudkowskyNov 10, 2008, 9:06 PM
134 points
57 comments4 min readLW link

Cir­cu­lar Altruism

Eliezer YudkowskyJan 22, 2008, 6:00 PM
87 points
310 comments4 min readLW link

New­comb’s Prob­lem and Re­gret of Rationality

Eliezer YudkowskyJan 31, 2008, 7:36 PM
152 points
617 comments10 min readLW link

When (Not) To Use Probabilities

Eliezer YudkowskyJul 23, 2008, 10:58 AM
73 points
47 comments6 min readLW link

That Alien Message

Eliezer YudkowskyMay 22, 2008, 5:55 AM
401 points
176 comments10 min readLW link

My cur­rent LK99 questions

Eliezer YudkowskyAug 1, 2023, 10:48 PM
206 points
38 comments5 min readLW link

The role of Bayesian ML in AI safety—an overview

Marius HobbhahnJan 27, 2023, 7:40 PM
31 points
6 comments10 min readLW link

Sim­ple ver­sus Short: Higher-or­der de­gen­er­acy and er­ror-correction

Daniel MurfetMar 11, 2024, 7:52 AM
109 points
8 comments13 min readLW link

How do you ac­tu­ally ob­tain and re­port a like­li­hood func­tion for sci­en­tific re­search?

Peter BerggrenFeb 11, 2024, 5:42 PM
55 points
4 comments1 min readLW link

[Question] List of ar­gu­ments for Bayesianism

Aryeh EnglanderJun 2, 2024, 7:06 PM
9 points
3 comments1 min readLW link

My PhD the­sis: Al­gorith­mic Bayesian Epistemology

Eric NeymanMar 16, 2024, 10:56 PM
260 points
14 comments7 min readLW link
(arxiv.org)

Can a Bayesian Or­a­cle Prevent Harm from an Agent? (Ben­gio et al. 2024)

mattmacdermottSep 1, 2024, 7:46 AM
26 points
0 comments5 min readLW link
(yoshuabengio.org)

Bayes’ The­o­rem: In Search of Gold (Les­son 1)

bayesyatinaJun 28, 2024, 8:39 AM
3 points
0 comments3 min readLW link

Solu­tions to prob­lems with Bayesianism

B JacobsJul 31, 2024, 2:18 PM
6 points
0 comments21 min readLW link
(bobjacobs.substack.com)

Lo­cal Trust

Feb 24, 2025, 7:53 PM
21 points
4 comments5 min readLW link

Book re­view: Every­thing Is Predictable

PeterMcCluskeyMay 27, 2024, 3:33 AM
45 points
0 comments2 min readLW link
(bayesianinvestor.com)

Po­lariza­tion is Not (Stan­dard) Bayesian

Kevin DorstSep 16, 2023, 4:31 PM
11 points
6 comments7 min readLW link
(kevindorst.substack.com)

ra­tio­nal­is­tic prob­a­bil­ity(lit­ter­ally just throw­ing shit out there)

NotaSprayer ASprayerOct 4, 2023, 5:46 PM
−30 points
8 comments2 min readLW link

The Apol­lo­nian Gas­ket and AI’s Hid­den Geo­met­ric Structure

LikaMenchMar 7, 2025, 8:06 PM
1 point
0 comments3 min readLW link

[Question] Bayesian Reflec­tion Prin­ci­ples and Ig­no­rance of the Future

cricketsJan 25, 2024, 7:00 PM
5 points
3 comments1 min readLW link

Defer­ence and De­ci­sion-Making

Jan 27, 2025, 10:02 PM
28 points
2 comments7 min readLW link

Should you go with your best guess?: Against pre­cise Bayesi­anism and re­lated views

Anthony DiGiovanniJan 27, 2025, 8:25 PM
65 points
15 comments1 min readLW link

Opinion Ar­ti­cle Scor­ing System

ciaran Feb 10, 2025, 2:32 PM
1 point
0 comments5 min readLW link

Bayesian Punishment

Rob LucasOct 27, 2023, 3:24 AM
1 point
1 comment6 min readLW link

On Hav­ing No Clue

Chris_LeongNov 1, 2023, 1:36 AM
20 points
11 comments1 min readLW link

Mir­a­cles and why not to be­lieve them

mruwnikNov 16, 2022, 12:07 PM
4 points
0 comments2 min readLW link

A de­sign con­cept for su­per­in­tel­li­gent ma­chines (and Pop­per’s cri­tique of in­duc­tion)

tiplur-bilrexDec 12, 2023, 6:31 PM
−7 points
6 comments1 min readLW link
(tiplur-bilrex.tlon.network)

Ide­olog­i­cal Bayesians

Kevin DorstFeb 25, 2024, 2:17 PM
96 points
4 comments10 min readLW link
(kevindorst.substack.com)
No comments.