Liron comments on Timeless Decision Theory: Problems I Can't Solve - Less Wrong

39 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 20 July 2009 12:02AM

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Comment author: Liron 20 July 2009 08:20:26AM 4 points [-]

An agent can guarantee the persistence of a trait by self-modifying into code that provably can never lead to the modification of that trait. A trivial example is that the agent can self-modify into code that preserves a trait and can't self-modify.

Comment author: [deleted] 20 July 2009 04:54:28PM -1 points [-]

But more precisely, an agent can guarantee the persistence of a trait only "by self-modifying into code that provably can nevenrlead to the modification of that trait." Anything tied to rationality that guarantees the existence of a conforming modification at the time of offer must guarantee the continued existence of the same capacity after the modification, making the proposed self-modification self-contradictory.