datadataeverywhere comments on Counterfactual Calculation and Observational Knowledge - Less Wrong

11 Post author: Vladimir_Nesov 31 January 2011 04:28PM

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Comment author: prase 01 February 2011 07:04:30PM 1 point [-]

This doesn't seem the same. In Counterfactual Mugging, my reward depends on my hypothetical behaviour in the counterfactual scenario. Here, you have explicitly ruled out that the counterfactual me can influence something.

Suppose a reward $1000 for passing the test. Let's also assume 100 copies of some person taking the test. If the copies are the sort of people who agree with the calculator no matter what Omega says, 99 of them would obtain $1000, for trivial reasons, and one gets nothing. This justifies the 99% confidence.

Even if Omega rewrote the answers of actual copies based on decision of other actual copies (I don't think this follows from the description of the problem), still it would be better to stick with the calculator. If the copies knew specifically that Omega appears only to those copies who have received wrong answer from the calculator, only then would another strategy become justified, but again for trivial reasons.

What am I doing wrong?

Comment author: datadataeverywhere 01 February 2011 07:43:21PM 2 points [-]

I think your final (larger) paragraph is confusing, but your conclusion is correct. That Omega presents you with a counterfactual only provides evidence that Omega is a jerk, not that you chose incorrectly.

Comment author: prase 02 February 2011 01:36:24PM 0 points [-]

I am pretty sure that I have interpreted the problem wrongly and the confusingness of the paragraph is the result. (The only non-trivial interpretation which occured to me yesteday was that Omega is scanning a set of people and is changing actual answers of those who obtained "even" based on instructions given by those who obtained "odd", which was, in hindsight, quite absurd way to understand it.)

See also my last reply to Vladimir Nesov in this thread.

Comment author: Vaniver 02 February 2011 12:36:27AM 0 points [-]

Upvoted for "Omega is a jerk."