Unknown comments on Anthropomorphic Optimism - Less Wrong

25 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 04 August 2008 08:17PM

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Comment author: Unknown 06 August 2008 03:33:49AM 1 point [-]

Roko: it's good to see that there is at least one other human being here.

Carl, thanks for that answer, that makes sense. But actually I suspect that normal humans have bounded utility functions that do not increase indefinitely with, for example, cheese-cakes. Instead, their functions have an absolute maximum which is actually reachable, and nothing else that is done will actually increase it.

Michael Vassar: Actually in real life I do some EXTREMELY counterintuitive things. Also, I would be happy to know the actual consequences of my beliefs. I'm not afraid that I would have to act in any particular way, because I am quite aware that I am a human being and do not have to act according to the consequences of my beliefs unless I want to. I often hold beliefs without acting on them, in fact.

If there is a 90% chance that utility maximization is correct, and a 10% chance that Roko is correct (my approximate estimates), how should one act? You cannot simply "use the math", as you suggest, because conditional on the 10% chance, you shouldn't be using the math at all.