Ishaan comments on L-zombies! (L-zombies?) - Less Wrong

21 Post author: Benja 07 February 2014 06:30PM

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

Comments (71)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: Ishaan 11 February 2014 10:51:09AM *  0 points [-]

In general for counter-factual muggings, the way I like to think of it is that you would like to choose A, but as a rational agent you pre-committed to choosing B at a previous time point and are now physically incapable of making a different choice, thanks to an iron-clad pre-commitement originally intended to convince the omnipotent Omega that you were going to behave a certain way, by actually binding you to behave thusly.

But if you find that you can choose A, then by all means, choose A. It's evidence that you failed as a rational agent at a previous time point, but at the current time point it means you're lucky.

(Of course, this is all following the premise that you realize this is the end now, and that you aren't in a simulation.)