nshepperd comments on Polyhacking - Less Wrong

75 Post author: Alicorn 28 August 2011 08:35AM

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Comment author: nshepperd 11 June 2012 04:28:55AM *  1 point [-]

Downvoted for trying to argue against a principle that is actually irrelevant to your claims. ("The utility function is not up for grabs" doesn't mean that decisions are always rational, and is actually inapplicable here.)

Comment author: [deleted] 11 June 2012 01:29:52PM 1 point [-]

I didn't mean decisions are always rational. I meant that it makes no sense for preferences to be rational or irrational: they just are. Rationality is a property of decisions, not of preferences: if a decision maximizes the expectation of your preferences it's rational and if it doesn't it isn't.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 11 June 2012 02:36:12PM 1 point [-]

Preferences can, however, be inconsistent.
And rational decision-making across inconsistent preferences is sometimes difficult to distinguish from irrational decision-making.