priorien
Priorien is a term used in theoretical discussions and some speculative fiction to denote a meta-prior—a probability distribution over prior distributions in Bayesian reasoning. The term is not a standard concept in formal statistics, but it is employed to explore how uncertainty about the priors themselves can affect inference. It serves as a way to discuss robustness to prior choices and to highlight the role of meta-uncertainty in modeling.
Etymology and scope: The word combines the notion of a prior with the suffix -ien, forming a
Concept and formalism: A priorien is a distribution over priors. If p(theta) is a prior for a
Applications and reception: Priorien is mainly used in thought experiments, pedagogical discussions, and some fictional settings
See also: Bayesian inference, hierarchical modeling, hyperprior, prior, model misspecification, robustness.