DanielVarga comments on The Anthropic Trilemma - Less Wrong

24 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 27 September 2009 01:47AM

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Comment author: DanielVarga 29 September 2009 09:53:49PM 4 points [-]

These instincts are only maladapted for situations found in very contrived thought experiments. For example, you have to assume that Copy 1 can inspect Copy 2's source code. Otherwise she could be tricked into believing that she has an identical copy. (What a stupid way to die.) I think our intuitions are already failing us when we try to imagine such source code inspections. (To put it another way: we have very few in common with agents that can do such things.)

Comment author: orthonormal 30 September 2009 11:13:43PM 1 point [-]

For example, you have to assume that Copy 1 can inspect Copy 2's source code.

It would suffice, instead, to have strong evidence that the copying process is trustworthy; in the limit as the evidence approaches certainty, the more adaptive instinct would approach indifference between the cases.