Douglas_Knight comments on Extreme risks: when not to use expected utility - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Stuart_Armstrong 23 October 2009 02:40PM

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Comment author: Douglas_Knight 24 October 2009 07:00:22PM 1 point [-]

To be technical, A and B are random variables, though you can usefully think of them as generalised lotteries. A+B represents you being entered in both lotteries.

That has nothing to do with the independence axiom, which is about Wei Dai's first suggestion of a 50% chance of A and a 50% chance of B (and about unequal mixtures). I think your entire post is based on this confusion.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 26 October 2009 06:25:34PM 0 points [-]

I did wonder what Stuart meant when he started talking about adding probability distributions together. In the usual treatment, a single probability distribution represents all possible worlds, yes?

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 27 October 2009 01:05:51AM 0 points [-]

Yes, the axioms are about preferences over probability distributions over all possible worlds and are enough to produce a utility function whose expectation produces those preferences.

Comment author: Wei_Dai 25 October 2009 04:51:00PM 0 points [-]

I think your entire post is based on this confusion.

That's how it looks to me as well.

Comment author: Stuart_Armstrong 26 October 2009 11:47:08AM 0 points [-]

No, it isn't. I'll write another post that makes my position clearer, as it seems I've spectacularly failed with this one :-)