Heh.  "Right.  Well, this happened when I asked Ione if I could borrow a compendium of cleric spells and she said that the book existed but was checked out already.  In one possible world I could have been in, I reasoned, the library actually had plenty of books with all the cleric spells, but those books contained spells that Chelish Governance would rather I not know about, or Ione wasn't sure that was not true given poor general circulation of information around Project Lawful, so she told me there was only one such book and it was already checked out.  If the world is one where Chelish Governance is generally trying to keep me and my capabilities under control, how likely am I to be stonewalled on a book of cleric spells while they try to quickly print up a new one without all the spells they don't want me to know about?  My guess there was around 3/4, or 75%.  In the other possible world, there's an ordinary library situation on which Ione reports truthfully, and then I have to consider how likely I think it is that there'd really be only one book with a compendium of half the economically important magic, even if the library is mainly aimed at wizards, and also this book is already checked out.  In dath ilan that'd be very improbable; here, I guessed 30%."

Keltham is writing on the white-wall:

P(no-book ◁ Conspiracy) = 75%
P(no-book ◁ Ordinary) = 30%

"Now, what is the Lawful way to think when you find yourself in that situation?  Can you say whether or not I should then think the book was being hidden from me?  Don't bring in all the other facts you know that might be relevant; just as a matter of math, in the Law of Probability, is there anything obvious you can do, any other conclusion you can derive, with the information written on the wall so far?"

Heh.  "Right.  Well, this happened when I asked Ione if I could borrow a compendium of cleric spells and she said that the book existed but was checked out already.  In one possible world I could have been in, I reasoned, the library actually had plenty of books with all the cleric spells, but those books contained spells that Chelish Governance would rather I not know about, or Ione wasn't sure that was not true given poor general circulation of information around Project Lawful, so she told me there was only one such book and it was already checked out.  If the world is one where Chelish Governance is generally trying to keep me and my capabilities under control, how likely am I to be stonewalled on a book of cleric spells while they try to quickly print up a new one without all the spells they don't want me to know about?  My guess there was around 3/4, or 75%.  In the other possible world, there's an ordinary library situation on which Ione reports truthfully, and then I have to consider how likely I think it is that there'd really be only one book with a compendium of half the economically important magic, even if the library is mainly aimed at wizards, and also this book is already checked out.  In dath ilan that'd be very improbable; here, I guessed 30%."

Keltham is writing on the white-wall:

P(no-book ◁ Conspiracy) = 75%
P(no-book ◁ Ordinary) = 30%

"Now, what is the Lawful way to think when you find yourself in that situation?  Can you say whether or not I should then think the book was being hidden from me?  Don't bring in all the other facts you know that might be relevant; just as a matter of math, in the Law of Probability, is there anything obvious you can do, any other conclusion you can derive, with the information written on the wall so far?"

Heh.  "Right.  Well, this happened when I asked Ione if I could borrow a compendium of cleric spells, and she said that the book existed but was checked out already.  I then considered two possible ways the world could be, and how likely those worlds would be to generate what I observed."

"In one possible world I could have been in, I reasoned, the library actually had plenty of books with all the cleric spells, but those books contained spells that Chelish Governance would rather I not know about, or Ione wasn't sure that was not true given poor general circulation of information around Project Lawful, so she told me there was only one such book and it was already checked out.  If the world is one where Chelish Governance is generally trying to keep me and my capabilities under control, how likely am I to be stonewalled on a book of cleric spells while they try to quickly print up a new one without all the spells they don't want me to know about?  My guess there was around 3/4, or 75% - it's not 100% because maybe they've already got an altered book printed, for example, and in that case they don't have to claim it's not there."

"In the other possible world, there's an ordinary library situation on which Ione reports truthfully, and then I have to consider how likely I think it is that there'd really be only one book with a compendium of half the economically important magic, even if the library is mainly aimed at wizards, and also this book is already checked out.  In dath ilan that'd be very improbable.  Here, I guessed 30%."

Keltham is writing on the white-wall:

P(no-book ◁ Conspiracy) = 75%
P(no-book ◁ Ordinary) = 30%

"Now, what is the Lawful way to think when you find yourself in that situation?  Can you say whether or not I should then think the book was being hidden from me?  Don't bring in all the other facts you know that might be relevant; just as a matter of math, in the Law of Probability, is there anything obvious you can do, any other conclusion you can derive, with the information written on the wall so far?"

Heh.  "Right.  Well, this happened when I asked Ione if I could borrow a compendium of cleric spells, and she said that the book existed but was checked out already.  I then considered two possible ways the world could be, and how likely those worlds would be to generate what I observed."

"In one possible world I could have been in, I reasoned, the library actually had plenty of books with all the cleric spells, but those books contained spells that Chelish Governance would rather I not know about, or Ione wasn't sure that was not true given poor general circulation of information around Project Lawful, so she told me there was only one such book and it was already checked out.  If the world is one where Chelish Governance is generally trying to keep me and my capabilities under control, how likely am I to be stonewalled on a book of cleric spells while they try to quickly print up a new one without all the spells they don't want me to know about?  My guess there was around 3/4, or 75% - it's not 100% because maybe they've already got an altered book printed, for example, and in that case they don't have to claim it's not there."

"In the other possible world, there's an ordinary library situation on which Ione reports truthfully.  Then we ask how likely it is that there'd really be only one book with a compendium of half the economically important magic, even if the library is mainly aimed at wizards, and also this book is already checked out.  In dath ilan that'd be very improbable.  Here, I guessed 30%."

Keltham is writing on the white-wall:

P(no-book ◁ Conspiracy) = 75%
P(no-book ◁ Ordinary) = 30%

"Now, what is the Lawful way to think when you find yourself in that situation?  Can you say whether or not I should then think the book was being hidden from me?  Don't bring in all the other facts you know that might be relevant; just as a matter of math, in the Law of Probability, is there anything obvious you can do, any other conclusion you can derive, with the information written on the wall so far?"