Document comments on To what degree do you model people as agents? - Less Wrong

34 Post author: Swimmer963 25 August 2013 07:29PM

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Comment author: Document 25 August 2013 07:34:29AM *  1 point [-]

If person A is rude towards person B, I don't think, "person A is being a bad person"; I think something like, "person A is frustrated with person B and believes person B is misbehaving, and believes that rudeness is justified in this situation".

You assume that when someone appears to be acting in anger, they're actually acting in the way they've decided was best after weighing the facts?

Comment author: [deleted] 27 August 2013 02:47:18PM 1 point [-]

Well, no. In the particular case I had in mind, person A was being rude, and so I figured person A was frustrated with person B and believed person B was misbehaving. I asked person A if he thought rudeness was justified in this situation, and he said yes.

Comment author: Document 27 August 2013 03:01:18PM 1 point [-]

Did he ask himself that question before reacting to person B's behavior?

Comment author: [deleted] 01 September 2013 08:52:34PM 1 point [-]

I doubt that he did, so good point.

Comment author: Decius 27 August 2013 12:41:05AM 0 points [-]

What's the difference between someone who commonly believes that rudeness is appropriate, and a rude person?

Comment author: PeterisP 27 August 2013 02:28:01PM 2 points [-]

If you model X as "rude person", then you expect him to be rude with a high[er than average] probability cases, period.

However, if you model X as an agent that believes that rudeness is appropriate in common situations A,B,C, then you expect that he might behave less rudely (a) if he would percieve that this instance of a common 'rude' situation is nuanced and that rudeness is not appropriate there; or (b) if he could be convinced that rudeness in situations like that is contrary to his goals, whatever those may be.

In essence, it's simpler and faster to evaluate expected reactions for people that you model as just complex systems, you can usually do that right away. But if you model goal-oriented behavior, "walk a mile in his shoes" and try to understand the intent of every [non]action and the causes of that, then it tends to be tricky but allows you more depth in both accurate expectations, and ability to affect the behavior.

However, if you do it poorly, or simply lack data neccessary to properly understand the reasons/motivations of that person then you'll tend to get gross misunderstandings.

Comment author: Document 27 August 2013 02:51:39AM 0 points [-]

One has a particular belief, while the other follows a particular pattern of behavior? Not sure I see what you're getting at.

Comment author: CellBioGuy 25 August 2013 08:30:49AM 0 points [-]

That's not what they said. They said that they believe that rudeness is justified in the situation. That belief could change (or could not) upon further reflection. Hence the concept of regret.

Comment author: Document 25 August 2013 08:33:58AM -1 points [-]

Not thinking about a question isn't a belief, or rocks have beliefs.

Comment author: CellBioGuy 25 August 2013 08:39:32AM 0 points [-]

There's a difference between the slow methodical relatively inefficient (in terms of effort required for a decision) mode of thought, and the instant thoughts we all have (which we use for almost everything we do and are pretty good about many things but not all things).

Comment author: Document 25 August 2013 04:43:28PM *  0 points [-]

Although we've gone from "beliefs" to "thought(s)", it looks like overall we're disputing definitions.