If you had time for writing a bit about the pros and cons of a few books, I would be very interested.

Thank you for this detailed answer.

Some more questions:

notice if it's something that calls to you

I am not sure exactly what you mean here. From what I am reading, it is very difficult to know what it is without having experienced it. So how am I supposed to know? Do you have examples of motivations that would not be right?

(I would say that I personally feel very curious as to what it looks like, and that I would be significantly sad to learn that I can’t even try to get there.)

I highly recommend practicing as part of an organized community. […] You're also looking for a teacher who can be your mentor in all this.

I expected that. Then:

1. What are the standard keywords I should look for? What I mean is that I know quite nothing about the surrounding culture. Would I be looking for a “Buddhist church”? A “Zen temple”? — Are those the same? — A “meditation school”? Something else entirely?
2. What if there is no such community in my city? Is there a next best thing that still permits me to start that journey, or is your advice to not try that without a local community?

So, what if I want to get started on my own path toward enlightenment? What should I do? What should I avoid?

Oh, it looks exactly like the kind of reference that everyone here seems to be aware of and I am not. ^^ I will be reading that. Thanks a lot.

Ok. Thanks. So:

• p(bus has number ≤ 1546 | city has 2992 buses) = 0.5

implies

• p(city has < 2992 buses | bus has number 1546) = 0.5

?

If that is your reasoning, I do not see how you go from the former to the latter.

Is it a general fact that:

• p(bus has number ≤ n | city has N buses) = p(city has < N buses | bus has number n)

or does it work only for 0.5?

In that case, probability is n/N, and if we look for 0.5 probability, we get 0.5 = 1546/N which gives us N = 2992 with 0.5 probability.

Again, I am confused.

From what you write I understand this :

• p(bus has number ≤ n | city has N buses) = n/N
• so p(bus has number ≤ 1546 | city has N buses) = 0.5 iff. N = 2992
• therefore p(city has 2992 buses | bus has number 1546) = 0.5

But from your other comment, it looks like that last step and conclusion is not what you mean. Can you confirm that?

Or do you mean :

• therefore p(city has ≤ 2992 buses | bus has number 1546) = 0.5 ?

Or something else entirely?

Thank you. It is clearer that way. ^^ I feel like it would be less confusing (more true?) to write “below 30” rather than “30” in the sentence I quoted. ;-)

I looked at my clock and it was 15:14. It gives a 50 percent probability that the total number of hours in a day is 30

I am curious how you got that number.

It seems to me that, for any reasonnable prior, it it more probable that there is 16 hours in a day rather than 30.

Maybe I am misunderstanding your “50 percent probability”?

As a wise man once said

This link is dead.

For anyone interested, if I understand correctly, this was supposed to point to a review by E.Y. of Shadows of the Mind by Roger Penrose. A copy of that review can be found here : https://whatshouldiread.fandom.com/wiki/Shadows_of_the_Mind.

Tread cautiously when you hear someone arguing against "realism"

This link appears to be dead.
I guess that it was supposed to point to this text :
https://www.yudkowsky.net/rational/the-simple-truth

(or : https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/X3HpE8tMXz4m4w6Rz/the-simple-truth )