DanielLC comments on Buridan's ass and the psychological origins of objective probability - Less Wrong

1 Post author: common_law 30 March 2013 09:43AM

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Comment author: DanielLC 01 April 2013 03:45:44AM 1 point [-]

I'm not sure there's a stable solution where he doesn't move.

Like I said, the hay doesn't move, but the donkey does. He starts walking right away to the bigger pile, but he'll slow down as time passes and he starts wanting the other one.

Interestingly, that trick does get the ass to walk to at least one bale in finite time, but it's still possible to get it to do silly things, like walk right up to one bale of hay, then ignore it and eat the other.

I'm not sure there's a stable solution

The solutions are almost certainly unstable. That is, once you find some ratio of bale sizes that will keep the donkey from eating, an arbitrarily small change can get it to eat eventually.

Comment author: Elithrion 01 April 2013 03:54:01AM 0 points [-]

Interestingly, that trick does get the ass to walk to at least one bale in finite time, but it's still possible to get it to do silly things, like walk right up to one bale of hay, then ignore it and eat the other.

Okay, sure, but that seems like the problem is "solved" (i.e. the donkey ends up eating hay instead of starving).

Comment author: DanielLC 01 April 2013 04:22:01AM 1 point [-]

It can also use the "always eat the left bale first" strategy, although that gets kind of odd if it does it with a bale of size zero.

There is a problem if you want to make it make an actual binary decision, like go to one bale and stay.