This might not be exactly what OP meant but I think of “Bayesian” as distinguishing between the types of evidence Eliezer talked about in Scientific Evidence, Legal Evidence, Rational Evidence. There’s a perspective that “blog posts aren’t evidence” or “personal beliefs aren’t evidence”. This is clearly false in an obvious sense (people often update their beliefs based on blog posts or other people’s beliefs) but it’s true in another sense—in some contexts, people only accept “formal” evidence as evidence.
I would roughly define Bayesianism as the philosophy that anything that can change people’s beliefs counts as evidence.
In some sense, this sort of Bayesianism is a trivial philosophy because everyone already behaves as if it’s true, but I think it’s useful as an explicit reminder.
This might not be exactly what OP meant but I think of “Bayesian” as distinguishing between the types of evidence Eliezer talked about in Scientific Evidence, Legal Evidence, Rational Evidence. There’s a perspective that “blog posts aren’t evidence” or “personal beliefs aren’t evidence”. This is clearly false in an obvious sense (people often update their beliefs based on blog posts or other people’s beliefs) but it’s true in another sense—in some contexts, people only accept “formal” evidence as evidence.
I would roughly define Bayesianism as the philosophy that anything that can change people’s beliefs counts as evidence.
In some sense, this sort of Bayesianism is a trivial philosophy because everyone already behaves as if it’s true, but I think it’s useful as an explicit reminder.