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Perplexed comments on Desirable Dispositions and Rational Actions - Less Wrong
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Comments (180)
TDT does better, yes. My apologies; I'd forgotten the manuscript hasn't yet been released to the public. It should be soon, I think; it's been in the review process for a while. If for some reason Eliezer changed his mind and decided not to publish it then I'd be somewhat surprised. I'm guessing he's nervous because it's his first opportunity to show academia that he's a real researcher and not just a somewhat bright autodidact.
There was a decision theory workshop a few months ago and a bunch of decision theorists are still working on solving the comparably much harder problems that were introduced at that time. Decision theory is still unsolved but UDT/TDT/ADT/XDT are a lot closer to solving it than the ancient CDT/EDT/SDT.
Does better how? By cooperating? By achieving an reverse-Omega-like stance and somehow constraining the other player to cooperate, conditionally on cooperating ourselves? I am completely mystified. I guess I will have to wait for the paper(s).
I don't think there are any papers. There's only this ramble:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/15z/ingredients_of_timeless_decision_theory/
As I said, I think your correspondents are in rather a muddle - and are discussing a completely different and rather esoteric PD case - where the agents can see and verify each other's source code.
Thanks for the link. It was definitely telegraphic, but I think I got a pretty good notion where he is coming from with this, and also a bit about where he is going. I'm sure you remember the old days back at sci.bio.evolution talking about the various complications with the gene-level view of selection and Hamilton's rule. Well, give another read to EY's einsatz explanation of TDT:
Does that remind you of anything? "As you are deciding how the expression of you as a gene is going to affect the organism, remember to take into account that you are deciding for all of the members of your gene clone, and that changing the expression of your clone in other organisms is going to have an impact on the fitness of your own containing organism." Now that is really cool. For the first time I begin to see how different decision theories might be appropriate for different meanings of the term "rational agent".
I can't claim to have understood everything EY wrote in that sketch, but I did imagine that I understood his concerns regarding "contrafactual surgery". I want to get a hold of a preprint of the paper, when it is ready.