Vaniver comments on Decision Theories: A Semi-Formal Analysis, Part I - Less Wrong

21 Post author: orthonormal 24 March 2012 04:01PM

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Comment author: Vaniver 28 March 2012 01:25:18AM *  0 points [-]

And once you've found it, you just verify it. You don't have to simulate the code to verify the proof. You certainly don't have an infinite regress.

I still don't see why this is the case, but I think I understand everything else about it, which suggests I should let this sit for a while and it'll become clear when it's relevant. (The proof verification is where it looked like magic was happening, not finding the interesting proofs.)

If you like, you can say that by invoking exhaustive searching, we are assuming P=NP and assuming away the problem of AI. That is intentional. The question of decision theory is an independent problem and it is right to separate them this way.

I think I disagree that it's right to separate them this way, but this may just be a matter of taste / goals. I am far more interested in prescriptive decision theory than normative decision theory (bounded rationality vs. unbounded rationality).

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 28 March 2012 04:09:06AM 0 points [-]

I considered saying that proofs are verifiable by definition. I mean a proof in formal logic. The point of formal logic is that it is computable (even fast) to verify it. The point, which matches the common usage, is that it is convincing. You can't prove anything about arbitrary code; these algorithms are not guaranteed to understand the opponent. But it's interesting that sometimes they do succeed in proving things about their opponents.

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