Tenoke comments on Litany of Instrumentarski - Less Wrong

1 Post author: shminux 09 April 2013 03:07PM

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Comment author: Tenoke 09 April 2013 04:40:01PM 0 points [-]

The proposition "snow is white" is true if and only if believing that snow is white has positive utility.

That's quite catchy.

Comment author: Baughn 09 April 2013 04:54:13PM *  0 points [-]

It also seems to claim that snow is black if doing so has positive utility, regardless of whether or not it's actually true.

Consider, for example, if Big Brother can read your mind and will punish you horribly if you believe that snow is white. Yes, in that case it might make sense to believe that it's black (if you are capable of doing so), but that doesn't make it true.

Comment author: Tenoke 09 April 2013 05:10:31PM 2 points [-]

Yes, it is basically a roundabout way of saying that you prefer or think that achieving your values is more important than having an accurate map.

Comment author: D_Malik 09 April 2013 06:08:50PM 1 point [-]

Right, and if people care terminally about having an accurate map, that's one of their values, so the sentence also applies to them.

Comment author: shminux 09 April 2013 05:04:25PM *  2 points [-]

Utility is not the same thing as testability. Your color detector may return the same result when pointed at snow as when pointed at a sheet of paper, but you may decide to call the former "black" and the latter "white" for utilitarian reasons. Which is quite common IRL.