RichardKennaway comments on Truth vs Utility - Less Wrong

1 Post author: Qwake 13 August 2014 05:45AM

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Comment author: RichardKennaway 15 August 2014 09:08:37AM 2 points [-]

Why decline another Omega thought experiment? Because they usually amount to no more than putting a thumb on one side of the scales and saying, "Look, this pan goes down!"

Why decline the offer of a wonderful dream? Because it's a dream, not reality.

Comment author: Qwake 16 August 2014 01:53:32AM 0 points [-]

Yes but as stated above if there is superintelligent being capable of making perfect stimulations of reality than the Copernican Principle states that the probability of our "reality" not being a stimulation is extremely low If thats the case it would be obvious to choose Option 1, it being the stimulation that yields you the most utility

Comment author: RichardKennaway 16 August 2014 06:47:34AM 0 points [-]

If that's the case it would be obvious (to me) to choose Option 2 and ask a question with a view to determining if this is a simulation and if so how to get out of it.

But I think you're just putting a hand on the scales here. In the OP you wrote that a perfect simulation is "reality for" the people living in it. There is no such thing as "reality for", only "reality". Their simulation is still a simulation. They just do not know it. If I believe the Earth is flat, is a flat Earth "my reality"? No, it is my error, whether I ever discover it or not.

Comment author: bogdanb 05 September 2014 11:57:56PM 0 points [-]

I sort of get your point, but I’m curious: can you imagine learning (with thought-experiment certainty) that there is actually no reality at all, in the sense that no matter where you live, it’s simulated by some “parent reality” (which in turn is simulated, etc., ad infinitum)? Would that change your preference?

Comment author: RichardKennaway 06 September 2014 05:56:51AM 0 points [-]

I can imagine many things, including that one, but I am unconcerned with how I might react to them.

How would I explain the event of my left arm being replaced by a blue tentacle? The answer is that I wouldn't. It isn't going to happen.

Eliezer Yudkowsky, "A Technical Explanation of Technical Explanation"