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Decision Theories: A Semi-Formal Analysis, Part II
Or: Causal Decision Theory and Substitution
Previously:
0. Decision Theories: A Less Wrong Primer
1. The Problem with Naive Decision Theory
Summary of Post: We explore the role of substitution in avoiding spurious counterfactuals, introduce an implementation of Causal Decision Theory and a CliqueBot, and set off in the direction of Timeless Decision Theory.
In the last post, we showed the problem with what we termed Naive Decision Theory, which attempts to prove counterfactuals directly and pick the best action: there's a possibility of spurious counterfactuals which lead to terrible decisions. We'll want to implement a decision theory that does better; one that is, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error...
I know you're eager to get to Timeless Decision Theory and the others. I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I can't do that just yet. This background is too important for me to allow you to skip it...
Over the next few posts, we'll create a sequence of decision theories, each of which will outperform the previous ones (the new ones will do better in some games, without doing worse in others0) in a wide range of plausible games.
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Decision Theories: A Less Wrong Primer
Summary: If you've been wondering why people keep going on about decision theory on Less Wrong, I wrote you this post as an answer. I explain what decision theories are, show how Causal Decision Theory works and where it seems to give the wrong answers, introduce (very briefly) some candidates for a more advanced decision theory, and touch on the (possible) connection between decision theory and ethics.
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