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Vladimir_Nesov comments on Counterfactual mugging: alien abduction edition - Less Wrong Discussion

0 Post author: Emile 28 September 2010 09:25PM

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Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 29 September 2010 06:27:21AM 1 point [-]

By crafting an appropriate dependency graph, you can make TDT agent agree to any UDT decision. Even in CM, if you model Omega in more detail as depending on your decision, you can get TDT agent to comply, but this is not the point: TDT doesn't get this answer naturally without external introduction of compensating explicit dependence bias, and neither does it in this case.

Comment author: JGWeissman 29 September 2010 06:51:50AM 1 point [-]

I would like to see the dependency graph that compels TDT to pay in a counterfactual mugging.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 29 September 2010 05:03:00PM 0 points [-]

Not if it expresses what's real, but surely if it expresses what the agent cares about, basically the counterfactual world explicitly included.

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 01 October 2010 03:33:54PM 0 points [-]

Are you saying that it's easier to get TDT to comply to CM if it's ontologically fundamental randomness than if it's logical uncertainty? (but you think it can be made to comply then, too)

Comment author: JGWeissman 29 September 2010 05:25:11PM 0 points [-]

In the least convenient possible world, the TDT agent doesn't care intrinsically about any counterfactual process, only about the result on the real world.

Saying you can get an agent with one DT to follow the output of another DT by changing its utility function is not interesting.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 29 September 2010 05:28:56PM *  0 points [-]

Saying you can get an agent with one DT to follow the output of another DT by changing its utility function is not interesting.

If the mapping is natural enough, it establishes relative expressive power of the decision theories, perhaps even allowing to get the same not-a-priori-obvious conclusions from studying one theory as the other. But granted, as I described in this post, the step forward made in UDT/ADT, as compared to TDT, is that causal graph doesn't need to be given as part of problem statement, dependencies get inferred from utility/action definition.

Comment author: JGWeissman 29 September 2010 06:05:58PM 0 points [-]

If the mapping is natural enough,

Ok, so show me an actual example of a mapping that is "natural enough", and causes TDT to pay of in CM.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 29 September 2010 06:12:52PM 0 points [-]

I argued with your argument, not your conclusion.

Comment author: JGWeissman 29 September 2010 06:28:34PM 0 points [-]

I am not following your abstract argument, and would like to see an example of how a "natural enough" mapping can establish "relative expressive power of the decision theories".