Natalia comments on Avoiding doomsday: a "proof" of the self-indication assumption - Less Wrong

18 Post author: Stuart_Armstrong 23 September 2009 02:54PM

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Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 25 September 2009 09:10:21AM *  1 point [-]

As we are discussing SIA, I'd like to remind about counterfactual zombie thought experiment:

Omega comes to you and offers $1, explaining that it decided to do so if and only if it predicts that you won't take the money. What do you do? It looks neutral, since expected gain in both cases is zero. But the decision to take the $1 sounds rather bizarre: if you take the $1, then you don't exist!

Agents self-consistent under reflection are counterfactual zombies, indifferent to whether they are real or not.

This shows that inference "I think therefore I exist" is, in general, invalid. You can't update on your own existence (although you can use more specific info as parameters in your strategy).

Rather, you should look at yourself as an implication: "If I exist in this situation, then my actions are as I now decide".