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Confused about Solomonoff induction

by nebulous
13th Jul 2012
1 min read
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Personal Blog

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Confused about Solomonoff induction
10Oscar_Cunningham
3nebulous
5private_messaging
0nebulous
-5Manfred
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0Manfred
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[-]Oscar_Cunningham13y100

Better suited to the open thread.

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[-]nebulous13y30

Augh, right. I'd forgotten that was there.

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[-]private_messaging13y50

There is no search for a program inside a huge string of bits. The probability of a program is the probability that random string of bits begins with it, which is 2^-len . The programs are self delimited, i.e. the program could be a string like 011011... , the ... being a string of random bits that aren't read or which we decide not to consider to be a program (e.g. if the program simply sets up copying of input tape onto output tape). There's also no search for data inside the huge string of output, it has to begin with data. The 'search' has to be done if you want to find this probability - you have to try every input string.

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[-]nebulous13y00

I get it now. Thanks!

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[+]Manfred13y-50
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9Comments

Why wouldn't the probability of two algorithms of different lengths appearing approach the same value as longer strings of bits are searched?