this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2023
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Science Memes

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[โ€“] triclops6@lemmy.ca 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The intuition is exactly your argument:

When the machine says yes it's either because

(1) the sun went nova (vanishingly small chance) and machine rolled truth (prob 35/36) -- the joint probability of this (the product) is near zero

OR

(2) sun didn't go nova (prob of basically one) and machine rolled lie (prob 1/36) -- joint prob near 1/36

Think of joint probability as the total likelihood. It is much more likely we are in scenario 2 because the total likelihood of that event (just under 1/36) is astronomically higher than the alternative (near zero)

I'm skipping stuff but hopefully my words make clear what they math doesn't always

[โ€“] steveman_ha@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

That's a solid intro! Nice.