In response to The Doubling Box
Comment author: Mitchell_Porter 06 August 2012 02:33:47PM -2 points [-]

I admire the way this post introduces an ingenious problem and an ingenious answer.

Comment author: Grognor 06 August 2012 03:14:23PM 0 points [-]

Nonsense. The problem has posed has always been around, and the solution is just to avoid repeating the same state twice, because that results in a draw.

In response to The Doubling Box
Comment author: TrE 06 August 2012 06:33:07AM *  18 points [-]

I've never met an infinite decision tree in my life so far, and I doubt I ever will. It is a property of problems with an infinite solution space that they can't be solved optimally, and it doesn't reveal any decision theoretic inconsistencies that could come up in real life.

Consider this game with a tree structure: You pick an arbitrary natural number, and then, your opponent does as well. The player who chose the highest number wins. Clearly, you cannot win this game, as no matter which number you pick, the opponent can simply add one to that number. This also works with picking a positive rational number that's closest to 1 - your opponent here adds one to the denominator and the numerator, and wins.

The idea to use a busy beaver function is good, and if you can utilize the entire universe to encode the states of the busy beaver with the largest number of states possible (and a long enough tape), then that constitutes the optimal solution, but that only takes us further out into the realm of fiction.

In response to comment by TrE on The Doubling Box
Comment author: Grognor 06 August 2012 03:01:00PM 4 points [-]

I like this. I was going to say something like,

"Suppose <impossible scenario>, what does that say about your solutions designed for real life?" and screw you I hate when people do this and think it is clever. Utility monster is another example of this sort of nonsense.

but you said the same thing, and less rudely, so upvoted.

Comment author: Nick_Tarleton 20 July 2012 06:15:55PM *  2 points [-]

I see it as a true thing, and thus something to cooperate with. Normatively, I see it as instrumentally bad, but related to something I want to protect.

Comment author: Grognor 05 August 2012 11:11:18PM 0 points [-]

Perhaps it was imprudent, but I assumed that someone trying to promote rationality would herself be rational enough to overcome this parochialism bias.

Comment author: shminux 01 August 2012 11:08:49PM 18 points [-]

Because cryonics is not even close to "certain immortality now".

Comment author: Grognor 03 August 2012 10:41:38PM 2 points [-]

"Any and all cost" would subsume low probabilities if it were true (which, of course, it is not).

Comment author: Grognor 01 August 2012 11:00:20PM 6 points [-]

The poll results are intriguing. 35% would want cybernetic immortality at any and all cost! And yet I don't see 35% of people who can afford it signed up for cryonics.

Comment author: orthonormal 31 July 2012 03:18:46PM 1 point [-]

The moon and sun are almost exactly the same size as seen from Earth, because in worlds where this is not the case, observers pick a different interesting coincidence to hold up as non-anthropic in nature.

Comment author: Grognor 01 August 2012 10:33:22PM 0 points [-]

What?

Comment author: drethelin 01 August 2012 05:24:22PM -1 points [-]

TDT is not even that good at cooperating with yourself, if you're not in the right mindset. The notion that "If you fail at this you will fail at this forever" is very dangerous to depressed people, and TDT doesn't say anything useful (or at least nothing useful has been said to me on the topic) about entities that change over time, ie Humans. I can't timelessly decide to benchpress 200 pounds whenever I go to the gym, if I'm physically incapable of it.

Comment author: Grognor 01 August 2012 10:32:27PM *  0 points [-]

A failure or so, in itself, would not matter, if it did not incur a loss of self-esteem and of self-confidence. But just as nothing succeeds like success, so nothing fails like failure. Most people who are ruined are ruined by attempting too much. Therefore, in setting out on the immense enterprise of living fully and comfortably within the narrow limits of twenty-four hours a day, let us avoid at any cost the risk of an early failure. I will not agree that, in this business at any rate, a glorious failure is better than a petty success. I am all for the petty success. A glorious failure leads to nothing; a petty success may lead to a success that is not petty.

-Arnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day

The notion that "If you fail at this you will fail at this forever" is very dangerous to depressed people,

A dangerous truth is still true. Let's not recommend people try at things if a failure will cause a failure cascade!

TDT doesn't say anything useful [...] about entities that change over time

The notion of "change over time" is deeply irrelevant to TDT, hence its name.

Comment author: djcb 01 August 2012 09:25:36PM *  2 points [-]

Some of the books I read recently:

  • We Are Anonymous - entertaining though necessarily a bit dumbed-down discussion of the Anonymous/LulzSec hacks. In this genre, I prefered The Hacker Crackdown or Mitnick's Ghost in the wires, but it was interesting to see where the 'Anonymous' hackers came from, where they succeeded, and how they got caught.
  • Miller's Spent - sex, evolution and consumer behavior which was recommend to me here, and discusses EvoPsy / consumerism. Overall, an interesting book, until the last few chapters where the author unsuccesfully attempts to show how to overcome consumerism.
  • Linden's The Accidental Mind was a particularly insightful pop-sci discussion of how our brain works, with an emphasis on how buggy/imperfect it is, and how the brain works around that.
  • Some other books that I liked: Shell's Bargaining for advantage (pretty good book about, well, bargaining, which presents the subject in a structured, non-BS way). If finally read Cialdini's Influence (it was a bit anecdotical for my taste, but it's a pretty good overview of the little tricks people use to influence others)
Comment author: Grognor 01 August 2012 10:26:58PM 3 points [-]

I personally found the research in Influence rather lacking and thought Cialdini speculated too much. But chapter 3 of the book is dead on.

Comment author: Grognor 01 August 2012 03:59:54PM 11 points [-]

Do people think superrationality, TDT, and UDT are supposed to be useable by humans?

I had always assumed that these things were created as sort of abstract ideals, things you could program an AI to use (I find it no coincidence that all three of these concepts come from AI researchers/theorists to some degree) or something you could compare humans to, but not something that humans can actually use in real life.

But having read the original superrationality essays, I realize that Hofstadter makes no mention of using this in an AI framework and instead thinks about humans using it. And in HPMoR, Eliezer has two eleven-year old humans using a bare-bones version of TDT to cooperate (I forget the chapter this occurs in), and in the TDT paper, Eliezer still makes no mention of AIs but instead talks about "causal decision theorists" and "evidential decision theorists" as though they were just people walking around with opinions about decision theory, not the platonic formalized abstraction of decision theories. (I don't think he uses the phrase "timeless decision theorists".)

I think part of the rejection people have to these decision theories might be from how impossible they are to actually implement in humans. To get superrationality to work in humans, you'd probably have to broadcast it directly into the minds of everyone on the planet, and even then it's uncertain how many defectors would remain. You almost certainly could not possibly get TDT or UDT to work in humans because the majority of them cannot even understand them. I certainly had trouble, and I am not exactly one of the dumbest members of the species, and frankly I'm not even sure I understand them now.

The original question remains. It is not rhetorical. Do people think TDT/UDT/superrationality are supposed to be useable by humans?

(I am aware of this; it is no surprise that a very smart and motivated person can use TDT to cooperate with himself, but I doubt they can really be used in practice to get people to cooperate with other people, especially those not of the same tribe.)

Comment author: bramflakes 31 July 2012 07:53:01PM 5 points [-]

If I recall, Machiavelli was actually considered a rather mediocre statesman. His fame only came through his writings.

Comment author: Grognor 31 July 2012 10:13:46PM 10 points [-]

An expert on political ruthlessness, not an expert at political ruthlessness!

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