DanielLC comments on A (very) tentative refutation of Pascal's mugging - Less Wrong

0 Post author: Arran_Stirton 30 March 2012 06:43AM

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Comment author: DanielLC 31 March 2012 01:21:26AM 0 points [-]

Well for any finite amount of time that you predict into the future you've also got a finite amount of space to consider

You have an entire universe to consider. You don't deal with just possible universes just began. You deal with all possible universes. There are simple universes that eventually come out to this, but no simple ones that start this way. Also, a limited speed of light is not guaranteed. As far as we can tell, it's limited, but it might not be.

I'm not sure how making it look like the arrow had a 50% chance of hitting would make any difference to anything though?

If you can always calculate it so it's 50%, along with any other probability, you're clearly doing something wrong. It should only calculate to one value.

I don't know if this is the right terminology, but it seems to me that when you start adding extra possible universes on, their outcomes become causally decoupled from the original decision to give/not-give the mugger $5.

You can also add on modified versions that are coupled, or things like that. It's a bit more complicated than I said, but there's still a good chance (as in more than 1/3^^^^3) that the mugger isn't bluffing.