Comment on Outlawing Anthropics: An Updateless Dilemma

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:39:19 GMT

I agree with you that the reason why you can't use the 90/10 prior is because the decision never depends on a person in a red room.

In Eliezer's description of the problem above, he tells each green roomer that he asks all the green roomers if they want him to go ahead with a money distribution scheme, and they must be unanimous or there is a penalty.

I think this is a nice pedogogical component that helps a person understand the dilemma, but I would like to emphasize here (even if you're aware of it) that it is completely superfluous to the mechanics of the problem. It doesn't make any difference if Eliezer bases his action on the answer of one green roomer or all of them.

For one thing, all green roomer answers will be unanimous because they all have the same information and are asked the same complicated question.

And, more to the point, even if just one green roomer is asked, the dilemma still exists that he can't use his prior that heads was probably flipped.

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