Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Pascal's Muggle: Infinitesimal Priors and Strong Evidence - Less Wrong

43 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 May 2013 12:43AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (404)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: ModusPonies 06 May 2013 02:49:45PM 4 points [-]

I get the sense you're starting from the position that rejecting the Mugging is correct, and then looking for reasons to support that predetermined conclusion. Doesn't this attitude seem dangerous? I mean, in the hypothetical world where accepting the Mugging is actually the right thing to do, wouldn't this sort of analysis reject it anyway? (This is a feature of debates about Pascal's Mugging in general, not just this post in particular.)

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 06 May 2013 05:48:35PM 1 point [-]

Well, besides that thing about wanting expected utilities to converge, from a rationalist-virtue perspective it seems relatively less dangerous to start from a position of someone rejecting something with no priors or evidence in favor of it, and relatively more dangerous to start from a position of rejecting something that has strong priors or evidence.