I appreciate the reminder that “these people have done more research” is itself a piece of information that others can update on, and that the mystery of why they haven’t isn’t solved. (Just to ELI5, we’re assuming no secret information, right?)
I suppose this is very similar to “are you growing as a movement because you’re convincing people or via selection effects” and if you know the difference you can update more confidently on how right you are (or at least how persuasive you are).
No actually, we’re not assuming in general that there’s no secret information. If other people think they have the same prior as you, and think you’re as rational as they are, then the mere fact that they see you disagreeing with them should be enough for them to update on. And vice-versa. So even if two people each have some secret information, there’s still something to be explained as to why they would have a persistent public disagreement. This is what makes the agreement theorem kind of surprisingly powerful.
The point I’m making here though is that you might have some “secret information” (even if it’s not spelled out very explicitly) about the extent to which you actually do have, say, a different prior from them. That particular sort of “secret information” could be enough to not make it appropriate for you to update toward each other; it could account for a persistent public disagreement. I hope that makes sense.
Agreed about the analogy to how you might have some inside knowledge about the extent to which your movement has grown because people have actually updated on the information you’ve presented them vs. just selection effects or charisma. Thanks for pointing it out!
Right, right, I think on some level this is very unintuitive, and I appreciate you helping me wrap my mind around it—even secret information is not a problem as long as people are not lying about their updates (though if all updates are secret there’s obviously much less to update on)
I appreciate the reminder that “these people have done more research” is itself a piece of information that others can update on, and that the mystery of why they haven’t isn’t solved. (Just to ELI5, we’re assuming no secret information, right?)
I suppose this is very similar to “are you growing as a movement because you’re convincing people or via selection effects” and if you know the difference you can update more confidently on how right you are (or at least how persuasive you are).
Thanks!
No actually, we’re not assuming in general that there’s no secret information. If other people think they have the same prior as you, and think you’re as rational as they are, then the mere fact that they see you disagreeing with them should be enough for them to update on. And vice-versa. So even if two people each have some secret information, there’s still something to be explained as to why they would have a persistent public disagreement. This is what makes the agreement theorem kind of surprisingly powerful.
The point I’m making here though is that you might have some “secret information” (even if it’s not spelled out very explicitly) about the extent to which you actually do have, say, a different prior from them. That particular sort of “secret information” could be enough to not make it appropriate for you to update toward each other; it could account for a persistent public disagreement. I hope that makes sense.
Agreed about the analogy to how you might have some inside knowledge about the extent to which your movement has grown because people have actually updated on the information you’ve presented them vs. just selection effects or charisma. Thanks for pointing it out!
Right, right, I think on some level this is very unintuitive, and I appreciate you helping me wrap my mind around it—even secret information is not a problem as long as people are not lying about their updates (though if all updates are secret there’s obviously much less to update on)
Yup!