thomblake comments on Counterfactual Mugging - Less Wrong

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

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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.