endoself comments on Rationality Quotes: February 2011 - Less Wrong

13 Post author: gwern 01 February 2011 05:46PM

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Comment author: endoself 08 February 2011 10:53:58AM *  13 points [-]

After finishing dinner, Sidney Morgenbesser decides to order dessert. The waitress tells him he has two choices: apple pie and blueberry pie. Sidney orders the apple pie. After a few minutes the waitress returns and says that they also have cherry pie at which point Morgenbesser says "In that case I'll have the blueberry pie."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_of_irrelevant_alternatives

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Morgenbesser

Comment author: mcandre 12 February 2011 11:55:48PM *  1 point [-]

Sidney chooses pies on the basis of popularity. Apple pie is more popular than blueberry pie. Apple pie is so popular that pie eaters have grown sick of it. They quickly gorge on the new cherry pie. When the fad dies down, they are still sick of apple pie and begin a blueberry revival. Sidney correctly predicts that blueberry will be more popular.

Comment author: endoself 13 February 2011 05:24:14AM 0 points [-]

His preferences in that scenario do not violate independence of irrelevant alternatives (that might be your point; I'm not sure). This is meant as an intuition pump to show the absurdity of violating IIA, not a watertight argument that the observed behaviour does in fact violate it.