Sticky comments on Advancing Certainty - Less Wrong

34 Post author: komponisto 18 January 2010 09:51AM

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Comment author: pengvado 25 January 2010 03:03:33AM 4 points [-]

The process that builds the GLUT has to contain your mind, but nothing else. The deceiver tries all exponentially-many strings of sensory inputs, and sees what effects they have on your simulated internal state. Select the one that maximizes your belief in proposition X. No simulation of X involved, and the deceiver doesn't even need to know anything more about X than you think you know at the beginning.

Comment author: Sticky 25 January 2010 11:26:47PM 0 points [-]

If whoever controls the simulation knows that Tyrrell/me/komponisto/Eliezer/etc. are reasonably reasonable, there's little to be gained by modeling all the evidences that might persuade me. Just include the total lack of physical evidence tying the accused to the room where the murder happened, and I'm all yours. I'm sure I care more than I might have otherwise because she's pretty, and obviously (obviously to me, anyway) completely harmless and well-meaning, even now. Whereas, if we were talking about a gang member who's probably guilty of other horrible felonies, I'd still be more convinced of innocence than I am of some things I personally witnessed (since the physical evidence is more reliable than human memory), but I wouldn't feel so sorry for the wrongly convicted.