I don't see the paradox. P(Alice saw this sequence) is low, and P(Alice presented this sequence) is low, but P(Alice saw this sequence | Alice presented this sequence) is high, so Bob has no reason to be incredulous.

After step one, you have a 50% chance of finding yourself the original; there is nothing controversial about this much. If you are the original, you have a 50% chance of finding yourself still so after step two, and so on. That means after step 99, your subjective probability of still being the original is 0.5^99, in other words as close to zero as makes no difference.

The way subjective probability is usually modeled, there is this huge space of possibilities. And there is a measure defined over it. (I'm not a mathematician, so I may be using the wrong terminology, but what I mean is that every 'sufficiently nice' subset of this set of possibilities has a number attached which behaves something like an area for that subset of the space.)

And then, in this model, the probability of some proposition is the measure of the subset where the proposition is true divided by the measure of the whole set. Numerator and denominator. And then each time you learn something, you throw away all of the points in that space that are no longer possible. So, you have typically decreased (never increased) both numerator and denominator. Do the division again and get the new updated probabilities. The space of all possibilities only loses points and measure, it never gains.

But I am not so sure this rule still applies when copying is involved. I think that each time you copy, you need to duplicate the subjective space of possibilities. The original space covered the measures of possibilities from one subjective viewpoint. At the point of copying, that space is duplicated because you now have two viewpoints. Initially, both original and copy are unsure which half of the space is theirs. But when they find out, they each throw out half of the doubled space. And then, as they learn more, possibilities are thrown away from one or the other of the spaces and each one updates to his own subjective probabilities.

So how does this apply to the copying scenario above? Start with one universe. Copy it when you copy the person. Produce a second copy when you produce the second copy of the person. Produce the 99th copy of subjective reality when you produce the 99th copy of the person. If at any stage, one of these persons learns for sure which copy is his, then he can prune his own subjective universe back to the original size.

So, if the protocol is that after each copying, the copy is told that he is a copy and the original is told that he is the original, then before any copying, the person should anticipate being told "You are original" N times, where N is between 0 and 99 inclusive. And he should attach equal probability to each of those events. That is, he should be 99 to 1 sure he will be the original the first time, 98 to one sure the second time, etc.

Forgive me if this is already known as one of the standard approaches to the problem.

Reading the preface to Science and Sanity by Korzybski:

From its very inception, the discipline of general semantics has been such as to attract persons possessing high intellectual integrity, independence from orthodox commitments, and agnostic, disinterested and critical inclinations. (...) For them, authority reposes not in any omniscient or omnipresent messiah, but solely in the dependability of the predictive content of propositions made with reference to the non-verbal happenings in this universe. They apply this basic rubric as readily to korzybskian doctrine as to all other abstract formulations and theories and, like good scientists, they are prepared to cast them off precisely as soon as eventualities reveal them to be incompetent, i.e., lacking in reliable predictive content. This circumstance in itself should abrogate once and for all the feckless charges sometimes made by ill-informed critics that general semantics is but one more of a long succession of cults, having its divine master, its disciples, a bible, its own mumbo-jumbo and ceremonial rites. (...) Far from being inclined to repel changes that appear to menace the make-up of general semantics, they actively anticipate them and are prepared to foster those that seem to promise better predictions, better survival and better adaptation to the vicissitudes of this earthly habitat.

One cannot help but be aware, in 1958, that there is far less suspicion and misgiving among intellectuals concerning general semantics and general semanticists than prevailed ten and twenty years ago. Indeed, a certain receptivity is noticeable. The term 'semantics' itself is now frequently heard on the radio, TV and the public speaking platform and it appears almost as frequently in the public print. It has even found a recent 'spot' in a Hollywood movie and it gives some promise of becoming an integral part of our household jargon. This in no sense means that all such users of the term have familiarized themselves with the restricted meaning of the term 'semantics,' much less that they have internalized the evaluative implications and guiding principles of action subsumed under general semantics. A comparable circumstance obtains, of course, in the layman's use of other terms, such as 'electronics.'

(...) The years since the close of World War II have similarly witnessed the access of general semantics not only to academic curricula of the primary, secondary and collegiate levels of the North and South American continents, parts of Western Europe, Britain, Australia and Japan, but to the busy realms of commerce, industry and transportation: of military organization and civil administration; of law, engineering, sociology, economics and religion. These constitute no negligible extensions of general semantics into the world of 'practical' affairs. Large business enterprises, looking toward the improvement of intra-and extramural relations, more satisfying resolutions of the complicated problems that arise between labor and management, and the enhancement of service to their immediate constituents and fellow men in general have found it rewarding, in many instances, to reorganize their entire structure so as to assure the incorporation of general semantic formulations. Several organizations now in existence make it their sale business to advise and provide help in the implementation of such changes. The core of their prescriptions consists in the appropriate application of general semantics. It is becoming a routine for the high and intermediate level executives of certain industries, advertising agencies, banking establishments and the like to retreat for several days at a time while they receive intensive instruction and participate in seminar-workshops designed to indoctrinate them with the principles of general semantics. Comparable courses of instruction have been provided within recent years for the officers of the U.S. Air Academy, the traffic officers of the Chicago Police Department and the sales forces of several large pharmaceutical and biochemical houses. These innovations in business procedure entail, of course, enormous outlays of time, energy and money. They must in time pay perceptible dividends or suffer abandonment. That they are steadily on the increase appears to offer eloquent testimony of their effectiveness.

(...) Membership in the two major organizations concerned with the development, teaching and utilization of general semantics, namely, the Institute of General Semantics located at Lakeville, Connecticut and the International Society for General Semantics, with its central office at Chicago, has slowly but steadily increased over the years and, gratifyingly, has generally avoided the 'lunatic fringe' that appears ever ready to attach itself to convenient nuclei. (...) numerous sectional conferences have been held in various cities each year and the number of courses sought and offered in general semantics is definitely on the increase.

All in all, then, a healthy state of affairs appears to prevail in respect of general semantics. The impact of Korzybski's work on Western culture is now unmistakable and there is every reason to be optimistic that his precepts will be read by ever-widening circles of serious students and that the latter, in their turn, must deeply influence generations of students yet to come. It remains to be seen what effects the regular implementation of these precepts will bring to mankind. Many of us are convinced that they will prove highly salutary.

Impressive! It's like reading about CFAR from a parallel universe. I wonder what happened in that parallel universe fifty years after this text was published. Can we use it as an outside view for the LW rationality movement fifty years after they achieve the successes listed here?

If retention of memory is a key component of identity, then what are the implications for identity:

When decades of new memories have been made (if loss of memory=loss of identity does gain of memory also=change of identity)? When old memories have changed beyond all recognition (unaware to the current rememberer he doesn't recall Suzy Smith from 1995 in 2015 the same way he recalled her in 2000)? When senile dementia causes gradual loss of memory? When mild brain injury causes sudden loss of large areas of memory while personality remains unchanged post injury? When said memory returns?

Tricky stuff, identity. Without a clear continuity to hang it on why should I care about what happens to me in five minutes, much less five years? Why do I work to benefit me tomorrow more than I do to benefit you next week? That's why I like hanging it on passive conscious awareness (assuming that thing exists), but damned if I know.

Yes, I understand that, but my question is why does the distinction matter in this context?

As long as you are always making accurate predictions, does the distinction matter?

This is a kind of repost of something I share on the LW slack.

Someone mentioned that "the ability to be accurately arrogant is good". This was my reply:

One aspect of arrogance is that it is how some competent people with a high self-esteem are ​perceived​ to be. I certainly was often perceived as arrogant. At least I got called that way quite often when I was younger and judging from some recent discussions which heavily reflected on that I probably made that impression for most of my life. I didn't and couldn't understand why. I certainly didn't want to give other people the feeling of inferiority. But I also did nothing to diminish my competence or my self-worth. Sadly doing nothing apparently is enough to give many other people the ​feeling​ of inferiority. And also apparently a natural response is to compensate in one of many ways:

• lashing out and trying to diminish the others self-worth by trying to make ​them​ smaller
• defensiveness and/or boasting: making self larger
• avoiding the competent person to avoid the feelings associated (being around high self-esteem competent persons is often un-fun)

I was unaware of these affects and being an introvert implied that it caused me little pain that I was avoided. People who knew me well knew that I wasn't arrogant per se and otherwise nice to be around but outside my circle I had to extensively rely on my competence to get things done. I played nice - but that cause little active reciprocation. Before I knew that arrogance - or signalling 'I'm smarter than you' - is a bad move Only recently did I acquire the language and experience to really notice and understand the impression I made - and was devastated. I don't want people to feel bad next to me. And I'm working on fixing that.

Note that other people who apparently fully understand the effects do sometimes choose differently. For example they might accept the impression they make as theirs and totally accept that they are shunned.

What do you think? Do others have this pattern?

<searching for refs> ...apparently they do: This post is about how dealing with this can fail.

See also this other post about another aspect of arrogance.

I've kind of switched to the view that I'm an observer-moment (OM) rather than an observer. There could be a giant probability distribution over all OMs that's based on complexity or something else, I don't claim to understand it.

Since some OMs remember being other OMs, we imagine a single thread of continuity pointing backward. (If minds could merge, we'd get creatures that remember being both Alice and Bob, so their past would look more like a tree, but we don't have the right technology yet.) Since we are also inductive learners, we imagine that continuity points forward as well. Since that seems to contradict physics, we compromise and say "okay, I have multiple actual futures, but there's gotta be a probability distribution over the next OM".

But I don't see why such a distribution must exist! At most, you have a distribution over OMs that have an (imperfect, possibly false) memory of being your current OM. You could call it immortality, but I'm not sure that's the right way to think.

Wow, that was a mouthful. Hope that makes sense to anyone else...

First, you are conflating categories. SSC is a blog -- a place where one person (or maybe a few) posts content and the visitors consume it. Comments are secondary and are not that important. LW is not a blog -- maybe it was once long time ago and it still misleadingly calls itself a blog, but functionally it's a forum attached to an archive.

One important difference is that blogs have ownership. I'm not talking about the legal sense, but rather about the feeling of responsibility/control/caring. When things are not owned by anyone in particular, there are... consequences. Consult the XX century history for particulars. LW used to be owned by EY. Right now it's not owned by anyone in particular.

If you want LW to go back to being a blog, you need to find preferably one, but not more than 5-6 people who will commit to the care and feeding of LW and who will have power to change things to their liking. But, of course, future is uncertain so as the result the LW might flower and be rejuvenated, or it may crash and burn.

The alternative is to treat LW as social platform, a forum, where content is provided mostly by the participants. Yes, you do not get solely high-level content, you get a lot of low-level stuff, too, but that's a filtering problem which has many well-known solutions. At the moment LW's filtering capabilities are rather... rudimentary.

Announce that during the next year, LW will have one post per week, at a specified time. There will be an email address where anyone can send their submissions, whereupon a horribly secretive and biased group of editors will select the best one each week, aiming for Eliezer quality or higher.

Functionally, this is turning LW into a magazine with one article per week. I think that's a decent approach, though I have some reservations.

Remember the shift from OB to LW, and one of the big changes being that people went from having to email Hanson about posting something (and maybe getting shot down) to being able to post something themselves. I worry that this creates too much in the way of inconvenience and risk of failure for posters, and means that they'll post it somewhere else instead of on LW.

But I think the tournament nature of it--there's a post every week, and so we need people to contribute, and if your post doesn't make it (or gets waitlisted or so on) it's not because you're absolutely bad, just relatively bad--does improve the idea significantly.

I'm also not sure how well this plays with the fragmentation in interests of people in the community.