Thursday, July 26, 2012
Shangri La Experiment: More Priors
Forgot that I should write down the predictions of each of my three theories in advance.
I did make some in my head, but I never got round to writing them down.
As I remember my prior predictions were:
There'll be two measurable variables:
Favourite Belt Notch (1,2,3,4,5,6) and Perceptible Loss of Appetite (yes/no)
I'll build prior probabilities by distributing 100 points around the likely predictions, and then putting 5 points in neighbouring cells, and 1s everywhere else.
Willpower (no loss of appetite, some increased girth)
1 2 3 4 5 6
yes 5 5 5 1 1 1
no 75 25 5 1 1 1
total 126
Shangri-La (huge loss of appetite, loss of girth)
1 2 3 4 5 6
yes 1 5 50 25 25 5
no 1 5 5 5 5 5
total 137
Helplessness (some loss of appetite, may or may not be noticeable, no change of girth)
1 2 3 4 5 6
yes 5 50 5 1 1 1
no 5 50 5 1 1 1
total 126
So for instance, if at the end of the month I am on belt notch 2, with noticeable loss of appetite, which was my actual prediction, then I can Bayesify matters thus:
prior H60:W39:S1
likelihood ratios H 50/126: W 5/126: S 5/137
new beliefs H 60*50/126: W 39*5/126: S 1*5/137
H 60*50*137: W 39*5*137: S 5*126
H 411000: W 26715: S 630
rounding:
H 937: W 60: S 1
Which looks right. If the experiment agrees with my pet theory, then I should believe in it lots.
If it disagrees with a mad theory that I don't believe in to start with, I should pretty much give up on that theory, and Willpower is getting dissed because it doesn't say I should notice a loss of appetite if I eat more.
Of course, loss of appetite is highly subjective, and I'm going to be tempted to try to make my experiment come out the way I want, which is essentially 'go, go Shangri-La, fuck off Willpower', so I should also consider what goes on if I report 'no loss of appetite, notch 2'
prior H60:W39:S1
likelihood ratios H 50/126: W 25/126: S 5/137
new beliefs H 60*50*137: W 39*25*137: S 5*126
H 411000 : W 133575 : S 630
H753: W244: S1
Which also looks right. W is getting penalised for favouring weight gain that didn't happen more than H is getting penalised for hedging its bets on appetite loss. S is getting kicked out into the dark for getting it wrong on both counts.
etc. etc.
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