= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
taryneast comments on Would Your Real Preferences Please Stand Up? - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (131)
Consider the case of a hungry rat that sees food on the other side of an electrified floor. The rat wants to minimize its discomfort. It wants to not get shocked, and also wants not to be hungry.
A moderately stupid rat will compare the pain of its current hunger to the pain of crossing the floor. When its pain from hunger becomes as strong as the pain of crossing the floor, it'll decide to cross the floor.
A smarter rat will realize that it'll have to cross the floor eventually, and so will minimize its total pain by crossing immediately, so its hunger doesn't have a chance to build to a painful level.
A really stupid rat will notice that, when it steps onto the electrified floor, its current pain equals the sum of its pain from hunger and the pain from the shock. As this total is always greater than the pain from hunger alone, it'll never step on the electrified floor and it will starve to death.
When it comes to homework, my decision-making algorithm seems to act like the first rat...
Hmmm good point. When I first began at university, my homework-reflex acted like rat#1. Eventually I trained myself to think like rat#2 in many cases - that improved things a lot.
I still battle the rat#1 tendencies and try to force myself to realise that the rat#2 strategy is actually optimal.
It does seem like my natural instinct is to feel like rat#1, and I have to consciously override to act like rat#2 - usually by forward-planing when I'm feeling stronger (well rested, well fed etc).