Jeff, if you search for my pseudonym in the comments of the "Natural Selection's Speed Limit and Complexity Bound" post, you will see that I have already brought MacKay's work to Eliezer's attention. Whatever conclusions he's come to have already factored MacKay in.

Eliezer, you'd have done better to ignore ReadABook's trash. Hir ignorance of your arguments and expertise was obvious.

Peter de Blanc, I don't have an example, just a vague memory of reading about minimax-optimal decision rules in J. O. Berger's Statistical Decision Theory and Bayesian Analysis. (That same text notes that minimax rules are Bayes rules under the assumption that your opponent is out to get you.)

IIRC, there exist minimax strategies in some games that are stochastic. There are some games in which it is in fact best to fight randomness with randomness.

For what it's worth, Tim Tyler, I'm with you. Utility scripts count as programs in my books.

I mean, we weren't even designed by a mind, we sprung from simple selection!

This is backwards, isn't it? Reverse engineering a system designed by a (human?) intelligence is a lot easier than reverse engineering an evolved system.

Emile, you've mixed up "optimization process" and "intelligence". According to your post, Eliezer wouldn't consider evolution an optimization process. He does; he doesn't consider it intelligent.

...it seems to me much of the beautiful LaTex equations and formulas are only to give the *impression* of rigor.

I didn't suggest equations to enforce some false notion of rigor -- I suggested them as an aid to clear communication.

Jef Allbright, it seems to me that if you want Eliezer to take your criticisms seriously, you're going to need more equations and fewer words. (It would be nice if Eliezer produced some equations too.)

"But I still suspect that there's a little distance there, that wouldn't be there otherwise, and I wish my brain would stop doing that."

A finely crafted recursion. I salute you.