Comment on indexical uncertainty and the Axiom of Independence

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 18:48:00 GMT

I don't believe that possible worlds can trade with each other, and I don't see anything in Counterfactual Mugging to persuade me of that.

Expectation maximization is based on a model in which you inhabit a world state, and you have a set (possibly infinite) of possible future world states, and a probability (or point on a probability distribution) attached to each one. If you have interactions between your possible future states, you're just not representing them correctly. The most you can say is that you are using some different model. You can't say there's a problem with the model, unless you demonstrate a situation your model can handle better than the standard model.

To answer the counterfactual mugging: You keep your $100. Because the game is over. You can't gain money in another branch by giving up the $100. This is not a Newcomb-like situation.

Please provide a counterargument if you vote this down.

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