AngryParsley comments on Re-formalizing PD - Less Wrong

28 Post author: cousin_it 28 April 2009 12:10PM

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Comment author: AngryParsley 30 April 2009 03:47:00AM 0 points [-]

I'm talking about scenario 1. I am not talking about your version of A and B. I assumed A and B generally referred to the two programs in the competition. Anyway, I gave an example of a program that would behave optimally. Unfortunately, it will go into infinite recursion against any program using a similar tactic.

Basically, If you know a program's source code and you know what input it will receive, you can perfectly predict the output.

I don't want to be rude, but I can't understand why anyone is arguing otherwise. Scenario 1 is very similar to the halting problem.

Comment author: cousin_it 30 April 2009 07:56:43AM *  0 points [-]

I wouldn't call a program that fails to cooperate with itself "optimal". My program is more optimal than yours, because it cooperates with itself in finite time. :-)

But this is an interesting direction of inquiry too. Is there a non-contradictory way to add something like magical predictor oracles to scenario 1? Would the resulting problem be mathematically interesting? Eliezer seems to think yes, unless I've misunderstood his position... but he refuses to disclose the math.