Unknowns comments on The Importance of Self-Doubt - Less Wrong

23 Post author: multifoliaterose 19 August 2010 10:47PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (726)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Unknowns 26 August 2010 06:35:02AM 2 points [-]

It doesn't matter whether it raises your prior or not; eternity in hell is also more than 2^3000 times worse etc... so the same problem will apply in any case.

Elsewhere I've defended Pascal's Wager against the usual criticisms, and I still say it's valid given the premises. But there are two problematic premises:

1) It assumes that utility functions are unbounded. This is certainly false for all human beings in terms of revealed preference; it is likely false even in principle (e.g. the Lifespan Dilemma).

2) It assumes that humans are utility maximizers. This is false in fact, and even in theory most of us would not want to self-modify to become utility maximizers; it would be a lot like self-modifying to become a Babyeater or a Super-Happy.