aspera comments on Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions - Less Wrong

71 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 25 August 2007 10:27PM

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Comment author: MugaSofer 10 October 2012 01:09:38PM 0 points [-]

Strictly speaking, if you somehow knew in advance (time travel?) that you would "die in a plane crash", then avoiding flying would indeed, presumably, result in a plane crash occurring as you walk down the street.

If you know your attempt will fail in advance, you don't need to try very hard. If you don't, then it is reasonable to avoid dangerous situations.

Comment author: aspera 10 October 2012 03:57:11PM 1 point [-]

I think this is the kind of causal loop he has in mind. But a key feature of the hypothesis is that you can't predict what's meant to happen. In that case, he's equally good at predicting any outcome, so it's a perfectly uninformative hypothesis.

Comment author: MugaSofer 16 October 2012 03:10:04PM 0 points [-]

That was exactly my point. If he could make such a prediction, he would be correct. Since he can't...