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Stuart_Armstrong comments on Another problem with quantum measure - Less Wrong Discussion
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I was envisaging utilons being "consumed" at the time they were added (say people eating chocolate bars). So choosing A would add 4M utilons, and choosing B would add 33M utilons.
My example is entirely compatible with this.
So the problem here is that you are not accounting for the fact that choosing A in the measure M world does not prevent the accumulation of measure 10M to world WB from quantum fluctuation. You get those 30M utilons whether you choose A or B, choosing A gets you an immediate 4M additional utilons, while choosing B gets you a deferred 3M utilons.
A and B could be logically incompatible worlds, not simply different branches of the multiverse.
I am not sure what you mean by "logically incompatible worlds", but if worlds WA and WB are the results of different available decisions of an agent embedded in a common precursor world, then they both follow the same laws of physics and just have their particles or whatever in different places, and in a quantum universe they just have different quantum states.
I may decide to go left or right at a crossroad. If I decide to go left (for good reasons, after thinking about it), then almost all of my measure will go left, apart from a tiny bit of measure that tunnels right for various reasons.
So if I decide on A, WB will exist, but only with the tiniest of measures.
Yes, that is how your decision gives your measure M to world WA or to world WB, but that shouldn't affect accumulation of measure into later states of these worlds by quantum fluctuation, so both worlds still get measure 10M from that.
Unless you mean that quantum fluctuations into later states of the world are directed by the normal evolution of the earlier states, including your decision, in which case, this process would be adding measure (perhaps not quantum measure, but counting as decision theoretic measure in the same way) to the initial state of the world in which you make the decision (because it is another instance of the same causal chain, that is, it produces the same result for the same reasons), so you get all 10M of the quantum fluctuation measure right away, and choice A gives 44M utilons while B still gives 33M utilons.
My model was of gradual proportional increase in utility, not absolute addition to every branch.
Yes, my example shows a proportional increase in measure between two times, and is indifferent to the gradual increase between these times. If you think the gradual increase is important, please provide an example that illustrates this.
I have already explained why adding the measure to a single branch is incoherent in both the cases where the decision causes or does not cause selection of the branch that receives the measure.
I don't quite understand the point. I'm claiming that, for instance, if a branch has measure M at time 0, it will have measure 2M at time 1. i.e. it's measure at time 1 is twice that at time 0. If measure splits into N+N'=M, then the branch with N will go to 2N and that with N' will go to 2N'.
Are you claiming that a) this model is incoherent, or b) that this model does not entail what I'm claiming (that you should save for the future)?
The basic model you described, even as alternative physics, is underspecified, and depending on how I try to steelman it so it is coherent, it doesn't entail what you claim, and if I try to steelman it so it entails what you say, it isn't coherent.
The big question is what worlds get to accumulate measure and why those particular worlds. If the answer is that all worlds accumulate measure, then the accumulation happens independently of your decision, so the effect should not impact your decision. If the answer is that the measure accumulation process looks somehow depends on what world your decision leads to, then the measure accumulation process in locating that world duplicates its causal structure, and by the globalized anti zombie principle, contains all the same conscious people as that world, so it adds to the worlds decision theoretical measure even before your model says it officially adds to its quantum measure (this is basically parallel to the argument for Many Worlds). What I think is incoherent is the idea that you can add measure to world state without adding measure to the process that selected that world state, which you try to do by supposing that your decision (and its intermediate effects) don't cause the later accumulation of measure, yet the measure magically accumulates in the world that results from your decision. (To account for this, you would have to follow the probability to outside the thought experiment.)
It feels like this should all be obvious if you understand why p-zombies are incoherent, why Many Worlds is obviously correct, and how these are related.