"Yeah, that's basically it.  In terms of what you should be feeling using Probability-Sight, it's that you've got to extend out the predictions, the 'likelihood-functions', from the things that might be true, to possible observations, so you can imagine what sorts of observations might distinguish between things that might be true, and then steer into that region of reality so you get to see those observations."

"In terms of underlying Law, there's a huge amount of math here of 'computer-science', about what determines how many observations you need, in principle, to narrow down between theories in particular classes.  None of which is a practical priority for you to learn right now, because mortals are so enormously less efficient than gods, or so I expect, who in turn are enormously less efficient than 'ideal-agents', so the principled bounds hardly matter, you're going to be buying way way more evidence than a god would need to arrive at the same conclusion.  But among the things you learn from studying those impossible ideals, is that it takes much much less evidence to figure something out, when you're allowed to pick which questions to ask."

"Next I ask - is there any wise advantage in looking at a quantity, a 'scalar-quantity' like the amount of time I take to answer?  At the amount of time, instead of, say, my facial expression and where my eyes were moving?  Not that I was letting my eyes move down the page in order, or anything like that, but still.  Why the amount of time I took, which collapses down to a neat little number, and not, say, the order in which I approached students when more than one student had their hand raised?  Wouldn't that be a more complicated, structured, interesting thing to try to predict?  Is there any advantage to trying to measure 'scalar-quantities' besides that they could be measured more precisely, using a pocketwatch that I didn't catch anybody actually looking at?"

"Yeah, that's basically it.  In terms of what you should be feeling using Probability-Sight, it's that you've got to extend out the predictions, the 'likelihood-functions', from the things that might be true, to possible observations, so you can imagine what sorts of observations might distinguish between things that might be true, and then steer into that region of reality so you get to see those observations."

"In terms of underlying Law, there's a huge amount of math here of 'computer-science', about what determines how many observations you need, in principle, to narrow down between theories in particular classes.  None of which is a practical priority for you to learn right now, because mortals are so enormously less efficient than gods, or so I expect, who in turn are enormously less efficient than 'ideal-agents', so the principled bounds hardly matter, you're going to be buying way way more evidence than a god would need to arrive at the same conclusion.  But among the things you learn from studying those impossible ideals, is that it takes much much less evidence to figure something out, when you're allowed to pick which questions to ask."

"Next I ask - is there any wise advantage in looking at a quantity, a 'scalar-quantity' like the amount of time I take to answer?  Why the amount of time, instead of, say, my facial expression and where my eyes were moving?  Not that I was letting my eyes move down the page in order, or anything that easy to catch, but still.  Why focus on the amount of time I took, which collapses down to a 'scalar-quantity', and not, say, the order in which I approached students when more than one student had their hand raised?  Wouldn't the order in which I picked students be a more complicated, structured, interesting thing to try to predict?  Is there any advantage to trying to measure 'scalar-quantities' besides that they could be measured more precisely, using a pocketwatch that I didn't catch anybody actually looking at?"

"Yeah, that's basically it.  In terms of what you should be feeling using Probability-Sight, it's that you've got to extend out the predictions, the 'likelihood-functions', from the things that might be true, to possible observations, so you can imagine what sorts of observations might distinguish between things that might be true, and then steer into that region of reality so you get to see those observations."

"In terms of underlying Law, there's a huge amount of math here of 'computer-science', about what determines how many observations you need, in principle, to narrow down between theories in particular classes.  None of which is a practical priority for you to learn right now, because mortals are so enormously less efficient than gods, or so I expect, who in turn are enormously less efficient than 'ideal-agents', so the principled bounds hardly matter, you're going to be buying way way more evidence than a god would need to arrive at the same conclusion.  But among the things you learn from studying those impossible ideals, is that it takes much much less evidence to figure something out, when you're allowed to pick which questions to ask.  It's often the difference, not so much between 'can be done with ten copper' and 'can be done with a million gold', as 'can be done at all' versus 'can't be done at all'."

"Next I ask - is there any wise advantage in looking at a quantity, a 'scalar-quantity' like the amount of time I take to answer?  Why the amount of time, instead of, say, my facial expression and where my eyes were moving?  Not that I was letting my eyes move down the page in order, or anything that easy to catch, but still.  Why focus on the amount of time I took, which collapses down to a 'scalar-quantity', and not, say, the order in which I approached students when more than one student had their hand raised?  Wouldn't the order in which I picked students be a more complicated, structured, interesting thing to try to predict?  Is there any advantage to trying to measure 'scalar-quantities' besides that they could be measured more precisely, using a pocketwatch that I didn't catch anybody actually looking at?"