Vladimir_Nesov comments on What a reduction of "could" could look like - Less Wrong

53 Post author: cousin_it 12 August 2010 05:41PM

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Comment author: Benja 14 August 2010 02:30:40PM *  0 points [-]

But in general, I don't believe this sort of reasoning carries over to multi-player games. If we take the Prisoner's Dilemma and tweak the payoffs slightly to make them non-symmetric, the agents are back to square one.

I don't understand. Do you mean changing the numeric values, leaving the game the same, or changing the ordering, turning it into different game? In the first case, it seems to me that the argument from your other post should work just fine [Edit: Wrong, see cousin_it's explanation below] -- roughly:

Suppose there's a short proof that agent1()=="C" iff agent2()=="cooperate". Then there's an only slightly longer proof that agent1()=="C" implies that both agents get the C/C payoff, and that agent1()=="D" implies both get the D/D payoff. Therefore, under the supposition, agent1 will choose "C"; similarly, agent2 will choose "cooperate".

In other words: If there's a short proof that agent1()=="C" iff agent2()=="cooperate", then agent1()=="C" and agent2()=="cooperate". By the Löbian reasoning in your previous post (linked above), it follows that both agents cooperate.

Am I confused about something? Or is it just that you were in fact talking about changing the payoffs so that the game is not a PD any longer? (I think it still at least bears mentioning if your work already solves the class of problems that Eliezer has been talking about, "where the other agents' decisions can be viewed as functions of one argument, that argument being your own choice in that particular case.")

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 14 August 2010 05:05:37PM 0 points [-]

Suppose there's a short proof that agent1()=="C" iff agent2()=="cooperate". [...] Therefore, under the supposition, agent1 will choose "C"; similarly, agent2 will choose "cooperate".

Sounds right (but it's a rather strong supposition).

Comment author: Benja 14 August 2010 05:52:22PM 0 points [-]

Sorry, I wasn't being as clear as I should have been:

The above is true as a metatheorem, but uninteresting, because as you say, the supposition is rather strong.

What I was trying to argue is that in the agent's proof system (for concreteness, say PA), when assuming the supposition, the conclusion follows, so by the deduction theorem, PA proves "the supposition implies the conclusion". I wanted to use this for a proof-size-bounded Löbian argument à la cousin_it.

But this does not work because in PA, the conclusion does not follow when assuming the supposition, as pointed out by cousin_it.