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jimmy comments on Decision theory: Why we need to reduce “could”, “would”, “should” - Less Wrong

18 Post author: AnnaSalamon 02 September 2009 09:23AM

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Comment author: jimmy 02 September 2009 04:08:32PM 0 points [-]

Puzzle piece 4: On their face, all calculations of counterfactual payoffs (“woulds”) involve asking questions about impossible worlds. It is not clear how to interpret such questions.

If it helps with understanding, you can throw some quantum dice in so that Bob really does take all options (with probability epsilon/n) and before deciding where to throw the vast majority of the probability mass, he computes the expected utility of each real branch.