Gary_Drescher comments on A problem with Timeless Decision Theory (TDT) - Less Wrong

36 Post author: Gary_Drescher 04 February 2010 06:47PM

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Comment author: Wei_Dai 05 February 2010 11:44:38AM *  2 points [-]

I don't see why this is outside of UDT's domain. It seems straightforward to model and solve the decision problem in UDT1. Here's the world program:

def P(color):
outcome = "die"
if Omega_Predict(S, "you're wrong") == color:
if S("") == color:
outcome = "live"
else:
if S("you're wrong") == color:
outcome = "live"

Assuming a preference to maximize the occurrence of outcome="live" averaged over P("green") and P("red"), UDT1 would conclude that the optimal S returns a constant, either "green" or "red", and do that.

BTW, do you find this "world program" style analysis useful? I don't want to over-do them and get people annoyed. (I refrained from doing this for the problem described in Gary's post, since it doesn't mention UDT at all, and therefore I'm assuming you want to find a TDT-only solution.)

Comment author: Gary_Drescher 05 February 2010 03:07:55PM 2 points [-]

(I refrained from doing this for the problem described in Gary's post, since it doesn't mention UDT at all, and therefore I'm assuming you want to find a TDT-only solution.)

Yes, I was focusing on a specific difficulty in TDT, But I certainly have no objection to bringing UDT into the thread too. (I myself haven't yet gotten around to giving UDT the attention I think it deserves.)

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