John_Maxwell_IV comments on Counterfactual Mugging - Less Wrong

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

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Comment author: MBlume 19 March 2009 10:02:53AM *  23 points [-]

There are various intuition pumps to explain the answer.

The simplest is to imagine that a moment from now, Omega walks up to you and says "I'm sorry, I would have given you $10000, except I simulated what would happen if I asked you for $100 and you refused". In that case, you would certainly wish you had been the sort of person to give up the $100.

Which means that right now, with both scenarios equally probable, you should want to be the sort of person who will give up the $100, since if you are that sort of person, there's half a chance you'll get $10000.

If you want to be the sort of person who'll do X given Y, then when Y turns up, you'd better bloody well do X.

Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 01 April 2009 08:54:45PM 2 points [-]

If you want to be the sort of person who's known to do X given Y, then when Y turns up, you'd better bloody well do X.

Is that an acceptable correction?

Comment author: MBlume 02 April 2009 12:25:56AM 6 points [-]

Well, with a being like Omega running around, the two become more or less identical.

Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 02 April 2009 03:24:04AM 3 points [-]

If we're going to invent someone who can read thoughts perfectly, we may as well invent someone who can conceal thoughts perfectly.

Anyway, there aren't any beings like Omega running around to my knowledge. If you think that concealing motivations is harder than I think, and that the only way to make another human think you're a certain way is to be that way, say that.