wedrifid comments on Common sense as a prior - LessWrong

33 Post author: Nick_Beckstead 11 August 2013 06:18PM

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Comment author: wedrifid 13 August 2013 04:24:06AM 0 points [-]

Interestingly, the author also says: "Your decision to vote or not will not affect whether or not other people will vote (unless you are a highly influential person and you announce your voting intention to the world in advance of the election)." This may be mostly true in practice, but not in the limit as everyone approaches identity with you. It seems like this author is a two-boxer based on his statements. He calls timeless considerations "magical thinking."

He may also be a two boxer who thinks that one boxing is magical thinking. However this instance doesn't demonstrate that. Acting as if other agents will conditionally cooperate when they in fact will not is an error. In fact, it will prompt actual timeless decision theorists to defect against you.

Comment author: Brian_Tomasik 13 August 2013 05:33:01AM 2 points [-]

Thanks! I'm not sure I understood your comment. Did you mean that if the other agents aren't similar enough to you, it's an error to assume that your cooperating will cause them to cooperate?

I was drawing the inference about two-boxing from the fact that the author seemed to dismiss the possibility that what you do could possibly affect what others do in any circumstance.

Comment author: wedrifid 13 August 2013 05:43:11AM *  1 point [-]

Did you mean that if the other agents aren't similar enough to you, it's an error to assume that your cooperating will cause them to cooperate?

Yes, specifically similar with respect to decision theory implementation.

I was drawing the inference about two-boxing from the fact that the author seemed to dismiss the possibility that what you do could possibly affect what others do in any circumstance.

He seems to be talking about humans as they exist. If (or when) he generalises to all agents he starts being wrong.

Comment author: Brian_Tomasik 13 August 2013 05:49:38AM 1 point [-]

Even among humans, there's something to timeless considerations, right? If you were in a real prisoner's dilemma with someone you didn't know but who was very similar to you and had read a lot of the same things, it seems plausible you should cooperate? I don't claim the effect is strong enough to operate in the realm of voting most of the time, but theoretically timeless considerations can matter for less-than-perfect copies of yourself.

Comment author: wedrifid 13 August 2013 06:50:27AM 2 points [-]

Even among humans, there's something to timeless considerations, right? If you were in a real prisoner's dilemma with someone you didn't know but who was very similar to you and had read a lot of the same things, it seems plausible you should cooperate?

Yes, it applies among (some of) that class of humans.

I don't claim the effect is strong enough to operate in the realm of voting most of the time, but theoretically timeless considerations can matter for less-than-perfect copies of yourself.

Yes.

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