You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Vladimir_Nesov comments on Group rationality diary, 8/6/12 - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: cata 08 August 2012 05:58AM

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

Comments (36)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 11 August 2012 06:07:04PM *  1 point [-]

I want a description of my expected future experiences

For what purpose? Decision-theoretically, what matters is consequences, not experiences.

Comment author: magfrump 14 August 2012 08:41:53PM 0 points [-]

I can imagine purposes for which envisioning multiple different hypotheticals is useful for decision-making, so I will concede this point. My original opinion was simply that I have different criteria for what makes me sleep better at night than I thought I did, anyway.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 11 August 2012 09:55:34PM 0 points [-]

Decision-theoretically, what matters is consequences, not experiences.

I'm confused by this distinction. Can you give me an example of an experience that is not a consequence and therefore doesn't matter decision-theoretically? Can you give me an example of a consequence that is not an experience and therefore matters decision-theoretically?

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 11 August 2012 10:41:05PM *  3 points [-]

For example, if you make a decision and then die, there will be consequences, but no future experiences. While future experiences are part of consequences, they don't paint a balanced picture, as (predictable) things outside experiences are going to happen as well. You can send $X to charity, and expected consequences will predictably depend on specific (moderate) value of X, but you won't expect differing future experiences depending on X.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 11 August 2012 11:18:36PM 1 point [-]

Gotcha! Sure, that makes sense. Thanks.