wedrifid comments on preferences:decision theory :: data:code - Less Wrong

3 Post author: ArthurB 19 February 2011 07:45AM

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Tags: cdt etd tdt udt

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Comment author: ArthurB 23 February 2011 01:18:48PM *  0 points [-]

That's certainly possible, it's also possible that you do not understand the argument.

To make things absolutely clear, I'm relying on the following definition of EDT

Policy that picks action a = argmax( Sum( P( Wj | W, ai ). U( Wj ), j ) , i ) Where {ai} are the possible actions, W is the state of the world, P( W' | W, a ) the probability of moving to state of the world W' after doing a, and U is the utility function.

I believe the argument I made in the case of Solomon's problem is the clearest and strongest, would you care to rebut it?

I've challenged you to clarify through which mechanism someone with a cancer gene would decide to chew gum, and you haven't answered this properly.

  • If your decision algorithm is EDT, the only free variables that will determine what your decisions are are going to be your preferences and sensory input.
  • The only way the gene can cause you to chew gum in any meaningful sense is to make you prefer to chew gum.
  • An EDT agent has knowledge of its own preferences. Therefore, an EDT agent already knows if it falls in the "likely to get cancer" population.
Comment author: wedrifid 23 February 2011 04:43:47PM *  0 points [-]

That's certainly possible, it's also possible that you do not understand the argument.

The combination:

  • Uncontraversial understanding by academic orthodoxy
  • General position by those on lesswrong
  • My parsing of your post
  • Observation of your attempts to back up your argument when it was not found to be persuasive by myself or others

... is sufficient to give rather high confidence levels. It really is a huge claim you are making, to dismiss the understanding of basically the rest of the world regarding how CDT and EDT apply to the trivial toy problems that were designed to test them.

There is altogether too much deduction of causal mechanisms involved in your "EDT" reasoning. And the deductions involved rely on a premise (the second dot point) that just isn't a part of either the problem or 'genes'.

Comment author: ArthurB 23 February 2011 05:55:21PM *  1 point [-]

I'm making a simple, logical argument. If it's wrong, it should be trivial to debunk. You're relying on an outside view to judge; it is pretty weak.

As I've clearly said, I'm entirely aware that I'm making a rather controversial claim. I never bother to post on lesswrong, so I'm clearly not whoring for attention or anything like that. Look at it this way, in order to present my point despite it being so unorthodox, I have to be pretty damn sure it's solid.

Comment author: ArthurB 23 February 2011 06:04:14PM *  0 points [-]

The second dot point is part of the problem description. You're saying it's irrelevant, but you can't just parachute a payoff matrix where causality goes backward in time.

Find any example you like, as long as they're physically possible, you'll either have the payoff tied to your decision algorithm (Newcomb's) or to your preference set (Solomon's).

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