Comment author: RobertLumley 13 October 2012 04:20:52AM 1 point [-]

The fact that there are 37 comments on this post (and similar posts) is rapidly convincing me that the new -5 karma penalty for replying to downvoted things is actually a really good idea.

Comment author: staticIP 13 October 2012 12:35:00PM -1 points [-]

I understand that a lot of issues are solved, like the existence of god and so on, but I for one still haven't gotten an appropriate explanation as to why my claim, which seems perfectly valid to me, is incorrect. That proposal is going to further hinder this kind of discussion and debate.

And as far as I can tell, I'm correct. It's honestly very concerning to me that a bunch of lesswrongers have failed to follow this line of reasoning to its natural conclusion. Maybe I'm just not using the correct community-specific shibboleths, but the only one who's actually followed through on the logic is gwern. I look forward to seeing his counter reply to this.

Comment author: DuncanS 13 October 2012 10:30:19AM -1 points [-]

If anyone accepts a pascals mugging style trade off with full knowledge of the problem,

Well, it's very well known that Pascal himself accepted it, and I'm sure there are others. So, off you go and do whatever it is you wanted to do.

To be honest, your ability to come through on this threat is a classic example of the genre - it's very, very unlikely that you are able to do it, but obviously the consequences if you were able to would be, er, quite bad. In this case my judgement of the probabilities is that we are completely justified in ignoring the threat.

Comment author: staticIP 13 October 2012 12:27:13PM 0 points [-]

In this case my judgement of the probabilities is that we are completely justified in ignoring the threat.

Do you consider my pascals mugging to be less likely then the general examples of the genre, or do you think that all pascals muggings" probabilities are that we are completely justified in ignoring the threat."

Comment author: gwern 13 October 2012 03:33:06AM 0 points [-]

Now you have two omnipotent god entities, each offering you a more or less random result. All you know about the result is that it's going to be positive or negative.

One of which is in a temporally advantaged position in which he can do anything you can do and do more in addition to that - a strictly superior position.

Do you get, on average and over a very large sample size, more utility from killing the baby or not killing her?

Without auxiliary arguments about what sample space we are drawing from, I don't see how you could possibly come to any kind of conclusion about this.

Comment author: staticIP 13 October 2012 12:24:07PM *  -2 points [-]

One of which is in a temporally advantaged position in which he can do anything you can do and do more in addition to that - a strictly superior position.

Sorry, explain to me how this hypothetical god-being can exceed my threat consistently? Presuming we are both from the same privileged outside-your-time perspective?

Comment author: gwern 13 October 2012 02:29:02AM 1 point [-]

I'm outside of your conception of time. So if they make the threat after this is of no concern to me.

You can't just wave your hands like that. What if the mugger offers a more complicated deal like a 2-step reward, where the second step overcomes your penalty? Are you just going to say 'fine my precommitment is to the net value'? But then the mugger can just toss in a Turing machine to his offer, and now your attempt to analyze his offer is equivalent to solving a halting problem! If you claim to have an oracle on hand, so can he, and that just relativizes the problem because with an oracle, now there are meta-halting problems... etc.

Your strategy doesn't work. Deal with it.

Comment author: staticIP 13 October 2012 02:37:56AM *  -3 points [-]

Your strategy doesn't work. Deal with it.

I'm afraid you still haven't shown me enough evidence. If you'll bear with me a moment longer, I'll try to explain it better.

But then the mugger can just toss in a Turing machine to his offer, and now your attempt to analyze his offer is equivalent to solving a halting problem

I want you to think of exactly the consequences of that. Now you have two omnipotent god entities, each offering you a more or less random result. All you know about the result is that it's going to be positive or negative. One offers you a random positive result if you kill a baby, one offers you a random negative result if you kill a baby. Do you get, on average and over a very large sample size, more utility from killing the baby or not killing her?

Comment author: BerryPick6 13 October 2012 02:18:29AM 0 points [-]

Are you saying that I should take some action with the knowledge that it might just be a quirk in the system? Like not posting my hypothesis?

Not at all. I was probably being unclear, I apologize.

Comment author: staticIP 13 October 2012 02:28:30AM 0 points [-]

Fair enough. Would you mind explaining your intent then?

Comment author: ewang 13 October 2012 02:18:38AM 1 point [-]

What do we do when there is a very tiny (2^-x) chance that THIS random thing has incredibly huge (O(3^^^^3)) importance?

Comment author: staticIP 13 October 2012 02:27:49AM -3 points [-]

Well it depends. Is the likelihood of it affecting reality around the same likelihood as me torturing everybody with my god powers? If it's significantly higher then that, I'd argue it's not an actual pascals mugging. Hard to know exactly where to draw the line though.

If it's not significantly higher then that, then you have to balance against my threat to torture everybody.

Comment author: Epiphany 13 October 2012 02:17:03AM *  1 point [-]

Eliezer presented a counter solution similar to this on Overcoming Bias. search fu

Click here for Flimple Utility!!!

Comment author: staticIP 13 October 2012 02:24:12AM 0 points [-]

Well done. Roryokane mentioned it up here however.

Comment author: gwern 13 October 2012 02:08:16AM 0 points [-]

I'm always going to claim that my threat is equal to or greater then their threat. Make sense?

And their claim afterwards? Any threat you can make, they can make. You see why this is a dead end?

(And what kind of decision theory requires a third party to make precommitments before you can make the right decision, anyway?)

Comment author: staticIP 13 October 2012 02:21:14AM -2 points [-]

And their claim afterwards? Any threat you can make, they can make. You see why this is a dead end?

That's kind of what I'm trying to point out here. It is a dead end, but I'm actually claiming the below. Sure, someone else can also claim the below as well. We can both make the claims. Now, who do you believe more?

But lets formalize my claim. My claim is that I will make n+1 utilitons happen if n is positive or n-1 utilitons happen is n is negative, as long as you do the opposite of what they tell you to do.

Where n is how many utilitons they offer given any result.

I'm outside of your conception of time. So if they make the threat after this is of no concern to me.

Comment author: BerryPick6 13 October 2012 02:08:29AM *  0 points [-]

I don't see why there has to be a solution to Pascal's Mugging. Is it so implausible to think that it's just a valid quirk in the system?

Comment author: staticIP 13 October 2012 02:14:16AM -1 points [-]

Err, yes. Maybe it is. That's what I'm trying to find out...

Are you saying that I should take some action with the knowledge that it might just be a quirk in the system? Like not posting my hypothesis?

Comment author: Epiphany 13 October 2012 02:04:57AM *  2 points [-]

would be very interested if you could expand on why you wanted to see all of my failed attempts, instead of my one successful attempt?

Because all of the other people who want to start threads on solutions to Pascal's muggings will be more likely to find your thread and go "Oh, someone already did this." That will save us from similar "solutions to Pascal's mugging threads" in the future. The worse your search terms failed, the better - that way Pascal's mugging solvers with low search-fu skill (no quotes this time) will be likely to find the existing solutions.

P.S. It's better to put them into complete sentences to avoid search engine penalties.

Comment author: staticIP 13 October 2012 02:12:48AM 0 points [-]

Ahh, makes sense. I actually found many different and interesting solutions to pascals mugging with my search terms though. Just not this "counter" solution.

This thread already shows up pretty close to the top for searches of "pascals mugging solutions" that I've attempted. For that exact phrase it's number 3, and has been before you posted this. I don't know that this particular solution needs to be more closely associated with the search terms then it already is.

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