incogn comments on Decision Theory FAQ - Less Wrong

52 Post author: lukeprog 28 February 2013 02:15PM

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Comment author: incogn 16 March 2013 03:25:02PM *  -1 points [-]

Decision theories do not compute what the world will be like. Decision theories select the best choice, given a model with this information included. How the world works is not something a decision theory figures out, it is not a physicist and it has no means to perform experiments outside of its current model. You need take care of that yourself, and build it into your model.

If a decision theory had the weakness that certain, possible scenarios could not be modeled, that would be a problem. Any decision theory will have the feature that they work with the model they are given, not with the model they should have been given.