srdiamond comments on Is risk aversion really irrational ? - Less Wrong

41 Post author: kilobug 31 January 2012 08:34PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 01 February 2012 10:41:02PM 2 points [-]

What you want to "put in your utility function" is... the effect of choices on your ability to estimate and optimize your utility function. That's making the utility function recursive, building a "strange loop to the meta level" between your utility and the optimization algorithm which is supposed to maximize the utility function. And I don't see any reason (but maybe there are) why that recursion should converge and be computable in finite time.

But (essentially to repeat a point) it would be a bias, since the adjustment is based on risk, whereas it should ('assuming everything else) be based on uncertainty (risk multiplied by the length of time the result is unknown). But even if the adjustment were based on the relevant factor, it would still be a bias because the adjustment should concern not only the time but on the chances that relevant decisions will be required in the interval.

A separate point—One topic that should be considered in evaluating the argument further is whether other decision problems introduce the same "strange loops."