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: Arran_Stirton 30 March 2012 07:13:38PM 0 points [-]

If you did the limit by program length, it might converge, but there's no obvious reason that there must be a certain order to count them in. If you can count them in any order, you can alternate between states where the arrow hits and states where it does not, and make it look like it has a 50% chance of hitting.

Well for any finite amount of time that you predict into the future you've also got a finite amount of space to consider, as anything too far away wouldn't be able to travel fast enough to effect the outcome of the thing being predicted about. Each state of the universe would really be the state of this finite area of space which would be expressed in binary. One way to order the states would be in terms of how large a binary number they form, from smallest to largest.

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

Given a state, you could add another non-interacting (or just interacting based on one guy's decision) universe where 3^^^^3 people die. This universe is constant complexity, and small complexity compared to 3^^^^3. Let's call the complexity of that part k.

Given a state, you could also add another non-interacting (or just interacting based on one guy's decision) universe where 3^^^^3 people lives are saved. 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.

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.