Will_Sawin comments on Rationality Quotes: June 2011 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Oscar_Cunningham 01 June 2011 08:17AM

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Comment author: Will_Sawin 25 June 2011 05:20:42AM 0 points [-]

There are two rather different things both going under the name counterfactuals.

One is when I think of what the world would be like if I did something that I'm not going to do.

Another is when I think of what the world would be like if something not under my control had happened differently, and how my actions affect that.

They're almost orthogonal, so I question the utility of using the same word.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 25 June 2011 08:57:52AM 1 point [-]

One is when I think of what the world would be like if I did something that I'm not going to do.

Another is when I think of what the world would be like if something not under my control had happened differently, and how my actions affect that.

Well, I've been consistently using the word "conterfactual" in your second sense.

Comment author: Will_Sawin 25 June 2011 03:31:53PM *  0 points [-]

Well that might explain some of our miscommunication. I'll go back and check.

Consequences" only in a counterfactual world. . I don't see how you can call this consequentialist without streching the term to the point that it could include nearly any morality system.

This makes sense using the first definition, at least, according to TDT it does.

Both CDT and TDT compare counter-factuals, they just take their counter-factual from different points in the causal graph.

This is clearly using the first definition.

Counterfactual mugging and the ransom problem I mentioned in the great-grandparent are both cases where TDT requires you to consider consequences of counterfactuals you know didn't happen.

This only makes sense with the second, and should probably be UDT rather than TDT - the original TDT didn't get the right answer on the counterfactual mugging.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 25 June 2011 11:13:50PM 2 points [-]

This only makes sense with the second, and should probably be UDT rather than TDT - the original TDT didn't get the right answer on the counterfactual mugging.

Sorry, I meant something closer to UDT.

Comment author: Will_Sawin 26 June 2011 03:17:25AM 0 points [-]

Alright cool. So I think that's what's going on - we all agree but were using different definitions of counterfactuals.

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