Qiaochu_Yuan comments on Simulating Problems - Less Wrong

1 Post author: Andreas_Giger 30 January 2013 01:14PM

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Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 31 January 2013 02:44:23AM 1 point [-]

For example my definition of analogous — what else could you possibly have expected in this context? No, don't answer that.

The question is how close you wanted the analogy to be.

For instance, how can we find a problem that is analogous to Newcomb, but without Omega? I have described such an analogous problem in my top-level post and demonstrated how CDT agents will in the initial state not make the analogous decision. What we're looking for is a problem in which any imaginable agent would, and we can prove it. If we believe that such a problem cannot exist without Omega, how can we prove that?

Okay, this is clearer.

As an aside note, I don't know what kind of stuff they teach at US grad schools, but what's of help here is familiarity with methods of proof and a mathematical mindset rather than mathematical knowledge

I can point you to a large body of evidence that I have all of these things.

Comment author: Andreas_Giger 31 January 2013 03:02:07AM *  1 point [-]

The question is how close you wanted the analogy to be.

Close enough that anything we can infer from the analogous problem must apply to the original problem as well, especially concerning the decisions agents make. I thought I said that a few times.

Okay, this is clearer.

Does that imply it is actually clear? Do you have an approach for this? A way to divide the problem into smaller chunks? An idea how to tackle the issue of "any possible agent"?

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