endoself comments on Tallinn-Evans $125,000 Singularity Challenge - Less Wrong

27 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 26 December 2010 11:21AM

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Comment author: endoself 19 January 2011 05:23:44AM 2 points [-]

He may actually refrain from donating, by the reasoning that such offers would work iff someone deems them reasonable and that person is more likely to deem it reasonable if he does, by TDT/UDT. I could see myself doing such a thing.

Comment author: Dorikka 19 January 2011 05:39:13AM 0 points [-]

But whether he does or doesn't donate does not affect how such offers are responded to in the future, since he is free to lie without fear of exposure. Given such, it seems that he should always maximize utility by donating.

Comment author: endoself 19 January 2011 06:15:58AM 0 points [-]

Future offers do not matter. His precommitment not to donate if others do not acausally effects how this offer is responded to.

Comment author: Dorikka 19 January 2011 05:30:10PM 0 points [-]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Would you mind explaining?

Comment author: endoself 19 January 2011 06:17:53PM *  0 points [-]

Are you familiar with UDT? There's a lot about it written on this site. It's complex and non-intuitive, but fascinating and a real conceptual advance. You can start by reading about http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Counterfactual_mugging . In general, decision theory is weird, much weirder than you'd expect.

Comment author: Dorikka 21 January 2011 01:45:37AM 0 points [-]

I've read some of the posts on Newcomblike problems, but am not very familiar with UDT. I'll take a look -- thanks for the link.