ata comments on Iterated Sleeping Beauty and Copied Minds - Less Wrong

2 Post author: lucidfox 21 December 2010 07:21AM

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Comment author: ata 23 December 2010 03:39:21AM *  2 points [-]

In what way is "I will be Sleeping-Beauty-waking-up" different information than "I am Sleeping-Beauty-waking-up"? I cannot see any difference other than verb tense, and since one is spoken before the other, that only constitutes a difference in the frame of reference in which each one is spoken, not a difference in propositional content; they're saying the same thing about the same event. (I think this is something like a variable question fallacy.)

Comment author: DanielLC 23 December 2010 10:10:00PM 1 point [-]

The verb tense is important. One only works from a single frame of reference. The other works from several.

The probability of a given frame of reference is 1/number of frames of reference.

In my planet example, from any frame of reference you can say that there is a planet with intelligent life that has less cosmic radiation that all but 1/5000 of them, but only on planets like that can you say that that's true of that planet.

The first is true unless cosmic radiation is necessary. The second is more likely to be true if cosmic radiation is harmful than if it isn't.

Do we have enough information to deduce that cosmic radiation is harmful, or, for that matter, that planets are helpful? They use the same basic argument.

These make different predictions, so it isn't the variable question fallacy.