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Mark_Friedenbach comments on Simulation argument meets decision theory - Less Wrong Discussion

14 Post author: pallas 24 September 2014 10:47AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 24 September 2014 07:25:47PM 2 points [-]

No, you're missing the point which maybe wasn't as obvious as I thought. It is quite easy (and therefore uninteresting) to contruct seeming paradoxes by assigning utility numbers to actions. However the resolution of the paradox is that utility function which generates those numbers does not match the explicit or implicit desires of the participants in the story. The problem setup says that "for every agent it is true" except that sentence is not true! Different agents assign different utilities based on their own goals. A different agent would not have the specified utility values attached to the actions.