komponisto comments on A Thought on Pascal's Mugging - Less Wrong

12 Post author: komponisto 10 December 2010 06:08AM

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Comment author: komponisto 12 December 2010 07:04:41AM 1 point [-]

The post you're commenting on argues that Pascal's mugging is already solved by merely letting the utility function be bounded by Kolmogorov complexity. Obviously, having it be uniformly bounded also solves the problem, but why resort to something so drastic if you don't need to?

Comment author: jsteinhardt 12 December 2010 11:04:16PM 0 points [-]

The OP is not living in the least convenient possible world. In particular, let X be the worst thing that could happen. Suppose that at the end of the day you have calculated that X will occur with probability 10^(-100) if you don't pay the mugger $5. Assuming that you wouldn't pay the mugger, then by definition of the utility function it follows that u($5) > 10^(-100) u(X). So u(X) < 10^(100) u($5) and is therefore bounded. Since u(X) is the worst thing that could happen, this means that your entire utility function is bounded.

See also my reply to wedrifid where this argument is slightly expanded.

Comment author: [deleted] 13 December 2010 12:06:33AM *  1 point [-]

If your utility function is not bounded (below), then there is no "worst thing that could happen."

Comment author: jsteinhardt 13 December 2010 01:39:46AM 0 points [-]

See my reply to komponisto in the comment above.