Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Rationality Quotes September 2012 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: Jayson_Virissimo 03 September 2012 05:18AM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 03 September 2012 08:51:35PM 5 points [-]

0 feedback is exactly what you get from 1 wish. "Feedback" isn't just information, it's something that can control a system's future behavior - so unless you expect to find another genie bottle later, "Finding out how your wish worked" isn't the same as feedback at all.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 04 September 2012 04:14:16AM 7 points [-]

so unless you expect to find another genie bottle later

...or unless genies granting wishes is actually part of the same system as the larger world, such that what I learn from the results of a wish can be applied (by me or some other observer) to better calibrate expectations from other actions in that system besides wishing-from-genies.

Comment author: wedrifid 04 September 2012 03:02:45AM 5 points [-]

0 feedback is exactly what you get from 1 wish. "Feedback" isn't just information, it's something that can control a system's future behavior - so unless you expect to find another genie bottle later, "Finding out how your wish worked" isn't the same as feedback at all.

I think it was clear that I inferred this as the new definition you were trying to substitute. I was very nearly as impressed as if you 'corrected' him by telling him that it isn't "feedback" if nobody is around to hear it, or perhaps told him that oxygen is a metal.