thomblake comments on Counterfactual Mugging - Less Wrong

52 Post author: Vladimir_Nesov 19 March 2009 06:08AM

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Comment author: brianm 19 March 2009 04:56:42PM *  7 points [-]

Yes, then, following the utility function you specified, I would gladly risk $100 for an even chance at $10000. Since Omega's omniscient, I'd be honest about it, too, and cough up the money if I lost.

If it's rational to do this when Omega asks you in advance, isn't it also rational to make such a commitment right now? Whether you make the commitment in response to Omega's notification, or on a whim when considering the thought experiment in response to a blog post makes no difference to the payoff. If you now commit to a "if this exact situation comes up, I will commit to paying the $100 if I lose the coinflip", and p(x) is the probability of this situation occurring, you will achieve a net gain of $4950*p(x) over a non-committer (a very small number admittedly given that p(x) is tiny, but for the sake of the thought experiment all that matters is that it's positive.)

Given that someone who makes such a precommitment comes out ahead of someone who doesn't - shouldn't you make such a commitment right now? Extend this and make a precommitment to always make the decision to perform the action that would maximise your average returns in all such newcombelike situations and you're going to come off even better on average.

Comment author: thomblake 19 March 2009 07:38:16PM 1 point [-]

Maybe in thought-experiment-world. But if there's a significant chance that you'll misidentify a con man as Omega, then this tendency makes you lose on average.

Comment author: brianm 19 March 2009 09:27:01PM 8 points [-]

Sure - all bets are off if you aren't absolutely sure Omega is trustworthy.

I think this is a large part of the reason why the intuitive answer we jump to is rejection. Being told we believe a being making such extraordinary claims is different to actually believing them (especially when the claims may have unpleasant implications to our beliefs about ourselves), so have a tendency to consider the problem with the implicit doubt we have for everyday interactions lurking in our minds.