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Psy-Kosh comments on The Smoking Lesion: A problem for evidential decision theory - Less Wrong
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I've read the smoking lesion thing before, and what occurred to be is that even under EDT, the reasoning in there is wrong. What I mean was that one shouldn't simply reason it out by comparing to the average stats, but take into account the fact that they're using EDT itself. ie, they should say "given that a person is using EDT, then what's the correlation between etc etc..."
Yes, this is correct. However, in principle there could still be a correlation when people used EDT. That was my point and that would make the case equivalent to Newcomb.
If the population of EDT rationalists was sufficiently large however, the correlation would necessarily be small enough that, for those with the largest desire to smoke, it would still be rational to smoke, even within the EDT paradigm.
Note: In your 100% scenario, it is actually perfectly rational to smoke if you desire to do so; your desire to do so is perfect evidence that you have the lesion and hence the decision to smoke provides no further evidence.
In the 100% scenario, it is not rational to smoke even if you desire to do so. The desire is evidence that you have the lesion, but not conclusive evidence. The decision to smoke would be conclusive evidence, while the decision not to smoke is conclusive evidence that you don't have the lesion. So you shouldn't smoke.
If that was true, then the correlation among people using EDT wouldn't even be close to 100%, what with the fact that people can't do something that's irrational under EDT while actually obeying EDT.
So either it's impossible to use EDT on this subject if you have the lesion, or it must be rational to smoke under EDT if you have the lesion.
Do you not see how creating contradictions is a problem?
It's not impossible to use EDT if you have the lesion. You use EDT, and you don't smoke. But then after a while, you change your mind, without using EDT, and start smoking. So you're right to the extent that if you have the lesion, you won't consistently use EDT at all times. This is no different from any other decision theory: people don't use them consistently in real life.