twanvl comments on Decision Theories: A Less Wrong Primer - Less Wrong

69 Post author: orthonormal 13 March 2012 11:31PM

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Tags: adt udt introduction timeless cdt newcomb tdt newcombs_problem prisoners_dilemma decision_theory

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Comment author: Dmytry 15 March 2012 11:24:44AM *  0 points [-]

I don't see how knowledge how the lesion works would affect the probabilities when you don't know if you have lesion and the probability of having lesion.

Comment author: twanvl 15 March 2012 11:30:33AM 0 points [-]

The lesion could work in (at least) two ways:

  1. it makes you more likely to use a decision theory that leads you to decide to smoke
  2. it only makes irrational people more likely to smoke.
  3. it changes people's utility of smoking.

In case 1, you should follow EDT, and use a decision theory that will make you not decide to smoke. In case 2, you know that the lesion doesn't apply to you, so go ahead and smoke. In case 3, conditioned on your utility function (which you know), the probability of the lesion no longer depends on your decision. So, you can smoke.

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