= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
DanArmak comments on Problematic Problems for TDT - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (298)
He can't have done literally infinitely many simulations. If that is really required it would be a way out by saying the thought experiment stipulates an impossible situation. I haven't yet considered whether the problem can be changed to give the same result and not require infinitely many simulations.
ETA: no wait, that can't be right, because it would apply to the original Newcomb's problem too. So there must be a way to formalize this correctly. I'll have to look it up but don't have the time right now.
In the original Newcomb's problem it's not specified that Omega performs simulations -- for all we know, he might use magic, closed timelike curves, or quantum magic whereby Box A is in a superposition of states entangled with your mind whereby if you open Box B, A ends up being empty and if you hand B back to Omega, A ends up being full.
We should take this seriously: a problem that cannot be instantiated in the physical world should not affect our choice of decision theory.
Before I dig myself in deeper, what does existing wisdom say? What is a practical possible way of implementing Newcomb's problem? For instance, simulation is eminently practical as long as Omega knows enough about the agent being simulated. OTOH, macro quantum enganglement of an arbitrary agent's arbitrary physical instantiation with a box prepared by Omega doesn't sound practical to me, but maybe I'm just swayed by increduilty. What do the experts say? (Including you if you're an expert, obviously.)
0 is not a probability, and even tiny probabilities can give rise to Pascal's mugging.
Unless your utility function is bounded.
Even? I'd go as far as to say only. Non-tiny probabilities aren't Pascal's muggings. They are just expected utility calculations. </lighthearted nitpick!>
If a problem statement has an internal logical contradiction, there is still a tiny probability that I and everyone else are getting it wrong, due to corrupted hardware or a common misconception about logic or pure chance, and the problem can still be instantiated. But it's so small that I shouldn't give it preferential consideration over other things I might be wrong about, like the nonexistence of a punishing god or that the food I'm served at the restaraunt today is poisoned.
Either of those if true could trump any other (actual) considerations in my actual utility function. The first would make me obey religious strictures to get to heaven. The second threatens death if I eat the food. But I ignore both due to symmetry in the first case (the way to defeat Pascal's wager in general) and to trusting my estimation of the probability of the danger in the second (ordinary expected utility reasoning).
AFAICS both apply to considering an apparently self-contradictory problem statement as really not possible with effective probability zero. I might be misunderstanding things so much that it really is possible, but I might also be misunderstanding things so much that the book I read yesterday about the history of Africa really contained a fascinating new decision theory I must adopt or be doomed by Omega.
All this seems to me to fail due to standard reasoning about Pascal's mugging. What am I missing?
AFAIK Newcomb's dilemma does not logically contradict itself, it just contradict the physical law that causality cannot go backwards in time.
It certainly doesn't contradict itself, and I would also assert that it doesn't contradict the physical law that causality cannot go backwards in time. Instead I would say that giving the sane answer to Newcomb's problem requires abanding the assumption that one's decision must be based only on what it affects based on forward in time causal, physical influence.
Consider making both boxes transparent to illustrate some related issue.
This might be better stated as "incoherent", as opposed to mere impossibility which can be resolved with magic.