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MugaSofer comments on DRAFT:Ethical Zombies - A Post On Reality-Fluid - Less Wrong Discussion

0 Post author: MugaSofer 09 January 2013 01:38PM

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Comment author: MugaSofer 13 January 2013 10:28:40AM -2 points [-]

How then, do you assign the odds?

You don't.

So ... you don't know what the odds are, but you know how to act anyway? I notice that I am confused.

it's Omega, who always tells the truth and has access to godlike power.

How does any particular agent go about convincing me that it's Omega?

Assuming that there is only one godlike agent known or predicted in the environment, that Omega is a known feature of the environment, and that you have no reason to believe that e.g. you are hallucinating, then presumably all Omega needs to do is demonstrate his godlike powers - by predicting your every action ahead of time, say, or turning the sky green with purple spots.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 13 January 2013 12:22:35PM 0 points [-]

So ... you don't know what the odds are, but you know how to act anyway? I notice that I am confused.

In an anthropic situation, I don't think it makes sense to assign odds to statements like "I will see X" because the meaning of the term "I" becomes unclear. (For example, I don't think it makes sense for Sleeping Beauty to assign odds to statements like "I will see heads.") I can still assign odds to statements like "exactly fifteen copies of me will see X" by reasoning about what I currently expect my copies to see, given what I know about how I'll be copied, and using those odds I can still make decisions.

Assuming that there is only one godlike agent known or predicted in the environment, that Omega is a known feature of the environment, and that you have no reason to believe that e.g. you are hallucinating, then presumably all Omega needs to do is demonstrate his godlike powers - by predicting your every action ahead of time, say, or turning the sky green with purple spots.

Omega needs to both always tell the truth and have access to godlike power. How does Omega prove to me that it always tells the truth?

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