I think that the mathematical structure of the multiverse matters fundamentally to anthropic probabilities. I think it's creative but wrong to think that an agent could achieve quantum-suicide-level anthropic superpowers by changing how much ve now cares about certain future versions of verself, instead of ensuring that only some of them will be actual successor states of ver patterns of thought.
However, my own thinking on anthropic probabilites (Bostromian, so far as I understand him) has issues†, so I'm pondering it and reading his thesis.
† In particular, what if someone simulates two identical copies of me simultaneously? Is that different from one copy? If so, how does that difference manifest itself in the gray area between running one and two simulations, e.g. by pulling apart two matching circuitboards running the pattern?
I think it's creative but wrong to think that an agent could achieve quantum-suicide-level anthropic superpowers by changing how much ve now cares about certain future versions of verself, instead of ensuring that only some of them will be actual successor states of ver patterns of thought.
You can't change your preference. The changed preference won't be yours. What you care about is even more unchangeable than reality. So we don't disagree here, I don't think you can get anthropic superpowers, because you care about a specific thing.
This is our monthly thread for collecting arbitrarily contrived scenarios in which somebody gets tortured for 3^^^^^3 years, or an infinite number of people experience an infinite amount of sorrow, or a baby gets eaten by a shark, etc. and which might be handy to link to in one of our discussions. As everyone knows, this is the most rational and non-obnoxious way to think about incentives and disincentives.