Will_Newsome comments on I Stand by the Sequences - Less Wrong

14 Post author: Grognor 15 May 2012 10:21AM

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Comment author: Will_Newsome 16 May 2012 01:37:52AM *  5 points [-]

I have advice. First off, if psi's real then I think it's clearly an intelligent agent-like or agent-caused process. In general you'd be stupid to mess around with agents with unknown preferences. That's why witchcraft was considered serious business: messing with demons is very much like building mini uFAIs. Just say no. So I don't recommend messing around with psi, especially if you haven't seriously considered what the implications of the existence of agent-like psi would be. This is why I like the Catholics: they take things seriously, it's not fun and games. "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." If you do experiment, pre-commit not to tell anyone about at least some predetermined subset of the results. Various parapsychology experiments indicate that psi effects can be retrocausal, so experimental results can be determined by whether or not you would in the future talk about them. If psi's capricious then pre-commiting not to blab increases likelihood of significant effects.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 16 May 2012 04:45:18AM 5 points [-]

Various parapsychology experiments indicate that psi effects can be retrocausal, so experimental results can be determined by whether or not you would in the future talk about them. If psi's capricious then pre-commiting not to blab increases likelihood of significant effects.

I just thought of something. What you're saying is that psi effects are anti-inductive.

Comment author: bogus 16 May 2012 08:52:56PM 0 points [-]

The capricious-psi literature actually includes several proposed mechanisms which could lead to "anti-inductive" psi. Some of these mechanisms are amenable to mitigation strategies (such as not trying to use psi effects for material advantage, and keeping one's experiments confidential); others are not.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 16 May 2012 04:59:21AM 0 points [-]

Indeed.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 16 May 2012 05:34:49AM 6 points [-]

Ok, I feel like we should now attempt to work out a theory of psi caused by some kind of market-like game theory among entities.

Comment author: CuSithBell 18 May 2012 03:01:51AM 2 points [-]

Thanks for the advice! Though I suppose I won't tell you if it turns out to have been helpful?