Benja 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 08:40:49PM 0 points [-]

I don't understand. The relevant step in the argument, as far as I understand it, requires an inference from "there exists a proof in n steps that cooperate is better" to "the agent cooperates". It seems to me that "enumerating all shorter proofs" would requiring knowing the precise proof (or at least its length), not just the statement "there exists such a proof". But I'm probably not following what, exactly, you have in mind; could you expand on your argument?

[I should say I was wrong to say "it ... cannot prove that" above -- all I can say is that one particular technique for showing that it can prove it doesn't go through.]

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 14 August 2010 08:56:17PM *  0 points [-]

The setting is sufficiently confusing at this point that I give up (I'm not sure what we are talking about). I'll try to work on a proof (not the proof) of something along the lines of this conjecture.