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RomeoStevens comments on Continually-adjusted discounted preferences - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (15)
Right, but the EV is so massive that it implies you should study physics 24/7 just to be sure you are correctly ruling it out.
Disagreed. The value of a successful discovery is probably more immense than any other value, but that doesn't imply that the value of the marginal hour studying physics is more positive than the next best option, i.e. that the expected value is massive. The probability you need to multiply is not that it's possible for someone eventually, but that you will discover it now / move its discovery closer to now, which could be done by doing things besides studying physics. That is, I think that getting the meta-research question right solves this problem.
It also means that discovering the universe is older than we currently expect ould significantly raise the EV of such research. Any probability of non-finite history could cause the EV to blow up.
That gets into Pascal's Mugging territory, I think.
I don't think so - an important part of Pascal's Mugging is that the demon acts second - you produce a joint probability and utility function, and then he exploits the fact that the former doesn't fall as fast as the latter rises.