rw comments on On Doing the Impossible - Less Wrong

31 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 06 October 2008 03:13PM

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

Comments (35)

Sort By: Old

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: rw 06 October 2008 11:13:32PM 1 point [-]

Eliezer said:

'On the timescale of years, perseverance is to "keep working on an insanely difficult problem even though it's inconvenient and you could be getting higher personal rewards elsewhere".'

This is inconsistent with utility maximization assumptions. Elsewhere on O.B. it has been discussed that the pursuit of dreams can be a payoff in itself. We must notice that it is the expectation of highest personal rewards, not the rewards themselves, that drive our decision-making. Working on the seemingly very hard problems is rewarding because it is among the set of most rewarding activities available.