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buybuydandavis comments on On the importance of taking limits: Infinite Spheres of Utility - Less Wrong Discussion

23 Post author: aspera 12 October 2013 09:18PM

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Comment author: buybuydandavis 12 October 2013 11:44:21PM 1 point [-]

Very nice work.

I feel it accomplishes too much for most people, though, so that they might not get everything out of it.

Great as a demonstration of Jaynes' point about paradoxes generate by failure to identify the limiting process for proposed infinities. But also great as a demonstration of how "doing the math" can resolve a lot of these philosophical debates which just don't specify problem conditions sufficiently because they don't explicitly write them down in mathematical form.

I think a lot of the self referential problems many like around here (Omega stuff, as an example) would be similarly dissolved by the latter.

Comment author: aspera 13 October 2013 03:23:32AM 0 points [-]

I agree that it's a lot to cover, but I wanted to work a full example. We talk a lot on LW about decision analysis and paradoxes in the abstract, but I'm coming from a math/physics background, and it's much more helpful for me to see concrete examples. I assume some other people feel the same way.

Self-referential problems would be an interesting area to study, but I'm not familiar with the techniques. I suspect you're right, though.