All of dadadarren's Comments + Replies

I think this discussion is focusing  on what other's would behave towards me, and derive what ought to be regarded as my future self from there. That is certainly a valid discussion to be had. However my post is taking about a different (thought related) topic. 

For example, if I for whatever crazy reason thinks that me from tomorrow:—the one with (largely) the same physical body and no trick on memory whatsoever— not my future self. Then I would do a bunch of irresponsible things that would lead to others' dislike or hostility toward me that coul... (read more)

If one regard physics as a detached description of the world— like a non-interacting yet apt depiction of the objective reality, (assuming that exists and is attainable) then yes there is no distinct "me".  And any explanation of subject experience ought to be explained by physical processes, such that everyone's "MEness" must be ultimately reduced to the physical body. 

However my entire position  stems from a different logical starting point.  It starts with "me". It is an undeniable and fundamental fact that I am this particular thing... (read more)

Please do not take this as an insult. Though I do not intend to continue this discussion further, I feel obliged to say that I strongly disagree that we have the same position in substance and only disagree in semantics. Our position are different on a fundamental level. 

The description of "I" you just had is what I earlier referred to as the physical person, which is one of the two possible meanings. For the Doomsday argument, it also used the second meaning: the nonphysical reference to the first-person perspective. I.E. the uniform prior distribution DA proposed, which is integral to the controversial Bayesian update, is not suggesting that a particular physical person can be born earlier than all human beings or later than all of them due to variations in its gestation period. In its convoluted way thanks to the equivo... (read more)

The point of defining "me" vigorously is not about how much upstream or physically specific we ought to be, but rather when conducting discussions in the anthropic field, we ought to recognize words such as "me" or "now" are used equivocally in two different senses: 1, the specific physical person, i.e. the particular human being born to the specific parents etc. and 2, just a reference to the first person of any given perspective. Without distinguishing which meaning in particular is used in an argument, there is room for confounding the discussion, I fee... (read more)

While I agree with the notion that we cannot regard ourselves as random samples from all human beings past, present and future, I find the discussion wanting in vigorously defining the reference of "us", or "me" or by extension "my parents". Without doing that there's always the logical wiggle room for arriving at an ad hoc conclusion that does not give paradoxical results, e.g. while discussion SBP, you suggested that "today" could mean any day, then attempting to derive the probability of "today is Monday" from there. That just doesn't sit comfortably wi... (read more)

This post highlights my problem with your approach: I just don't see a clear logic dictating which interpretation to use in a given problem—whether it's the specific first-person instance or any instance in some reference class. 

When Alice meets Bob, you are saying she should construe it as "I meet Bob in the experiment (on any day)" instead of "I meet Bob today" because—"both awakening are happening to her, not another person". This personhood continuity, in your opinion, is based on what? Given you have distinguished the memory erasure problem from ... (read more)

I guess my main problem with your approach is that I don't see a clear rational of which probability to use, or when to interpret it as "I see green" and when to interpret it as "Anyone see green" when both of the statement is based on the fact that I drew a green ball. 

For example, my argument is that after seeing the green ball, my probability is 0.9, and I shall make all my decisions based on that. Why not update the pre-game plan based on that probability? Because the pre-game plan is not my decision. It is an agreement reached by all participants... (read more)

I maintain the memory erasure and fission problem are similar because I regard the first-person identification equally applies to both questions. Both the inherent identifications of "NOW" and "I" are based on the primitive perspective. I.E., to Alice, today's awakening is not the other day's awakening, she can naturally tell them apart because she is experiencing the one today. 

I don't think our difference comes from the non-fissured person always stays in Room1 while the fissure person are randomly assigned either Room 1 or Room 2. Even if the exper... (read more)

If you use this logic not for the latitude your are born in but for your birth rank among human beings, then you get the Doomsday argument. 

To me the latitude argument is even more problematic as it involves problems such as linearity. But in any case I am not convinced of this line of reasoning. 

P.S. 59N is really-really high.  Anyway if your use that information and make predictions about where humans are born generally latitude-wise it will be way-way off. 

I think this highlights our difference at least in the numerical sense in this example. I would say Alex and Bob would disagree (provided Alex is a halfer, which is the correct answer in my opinion). The disagreement is again based on the perspective-based self identification. From Alex's perspective, there is an inherent difference between "today's awakening" and "the other day's awakening" (provided there is actually two awakenings). But to Bob, either of those is "today's awakening", Alex cannot communicate the inherent difference from her perspective t... (read more)

We both argue the two probabilities, 0.5 and 0.9, are valid. The difference is how we justify both. I have held that "the probability of mostly-green-balls" are different concepts if there are from different perspectives: From a participant's first-person perspective, the probability is 0.9. From an objective outsider's perspective, even after I drew a green ball, it is 0.5. The difference come from the fact that the inherent self-identification "I" is meaningful only to the first-person. Which is the same reason for my argument for perspective disagreemen... (read more)

I am trying to point out the difference between the following two: 

(a) A strategy that prescribes all participants' actions, with the goal of maximizing the overall combined payoff, in the current post I called it the coordination strategy. In contrast to: 

(b) A strategy that that applies to the single participant's action (me), with the goal of maximizing my personal payoff, in the current post I called it the personal strategy. 

I argue that they are not the same things, the former should be derived with an impartial observer's perspective,... (read more)

If one person is created in each room, then there is no probability of "which room I am in" cause that is asking "which person I am". To arrive to any probability you need to employ some sort of anthropic assumption. 

If 10 persons are are randomly assigned (or assigned according to some unknown process), the probability of "which room I am in" exists. No anthropic assumption is needed to answer it. 

You can also find the difference using a frequentist model by repeating the experiments. The latter questions has a strategy that could maximize "my" personal interest.  The former model doesn't. It only has a strategy, if abided by everyone, that could maximize the group interest (coordination strategy). 

The probability of 0.9 is the correct one to use to derive "my" strategies maximizing "my" personal interest. e.g. If all other participants decides to say yes to the bet, what is your best strategy? Based on the probability of 0.9 you should also say yes. But based on the probability of 0.5 you would say no. However, the former will yield you more money. It would be obvious if the experiment is repeated a large number of time. 

You astutely pinpointed that the problem of saying yes is not beneficial because you are paying the idiot versions of you's d... (read more)

Yep, under PBR, perspective—which agent is the "I"—is primitive. I can take it as given, but there is no way to analyze it. In another word, self-locating probability like "what is the probability that I am L" is undefined. 

The Sleeping Beauty problem and this paradox are highly similar,  I would say they are caused by the same thing—switching of perspectives. However, there is one important distinction. 

For the current paradox, there is an actual sampling process for the balls. Therefore there is no need to assume a reference class of "I".  Take who I am—which person's perspective I am experiencing the world from—as a given, and the ball-assigning process treats "I" and other participants as equals. So there is no need to interpret "I" as a a random sample fro... (read more)

Numerically it is trivial to say the better thing to do (for each bet, for the benefit of all participants) is not to update. The question is of course how do we justify this.  After all, it is pretty uncontroversial that the probability of urn-with mostly-green-balls is 0.9 when I get received the randomly assigned ball which turns out to be green. You can enlist a new type of decision theory such as UDT, or a new type of probability theory which allows two probability to be both valid depending on what betting scheme like Ape in the Coat's did). Wha... (read more)

Late to the party but want to say this post is quite on point with the analysis. Just want to add my—as a supporter of CDT—reading to the problem,  which has a different focus. 

I agree the assumption that every person would make the same decision as I do is deeply problematic. It may seem intuitive if the others are "copies of me", which is perhaps why this problem is first brought up in an anthropic context. CDT inherently treats the decision maker as an agent apart from his surrounding world, outside of the casual analysis scope. Assuming "othe... (read more)

Betting and reward arguments like this is deeply problematic in two senses:

1. The measurement of objective is the combined total reward to all in a purposed reference class, like the 20 "you" in the example. Usually the question would try to boost the intuition of this by saying all of them are copies of "you". However, even if the created persons (actually doesn't even have to be all persons, AIs or aliens will work just fine) are vastly different, it does not affect the analysis at all. Since the question is directed at you, and the evidence is your observa

The more I think about it the more certain I am that many unsolved problems, not just anthropics, are due to the deep-rooted habit of a view-from-nowhere reasoning. Recognizing perspective as a fundamental part of logic would be the way out.

Problems such as anthropics, interpretive challenges of quantum mechanics, CDT's problem of non-self-analyzing, how agency and free will coexist with physics, Russel's paradox and Godel's incomplete theorem etc

Maybe I am the man with a hammer looking for nails. Yet deep down I have to be honest to myself and say I don't think that's the case. 

Well, I didn't expect this to be the majority opinion. I guess I was too in my head. 

But to explain my rationale: The effects of the two drugs only differ during the operation, their end results are identical. So after the operation, barring external records like bank account information, there is no way to even tell which drug I took, their result would be the same. Taking external records into consideration, the extra dollar in the bank would certainly be more welcomed. 

The memory-inhibiting part was supposed to preclude the journey considerati... (read more)

Understandable. As much as I firmly believe in my theory, I have to admit I have a hard time making it look convincing. 

The conflict arises when the self at the perspective center is making the decision but is also being analyzed. With CDT it leads to a self-referential-like paradox: I'm making the decision (which according to CDT is based on agency and unpredictable) yet there really is no decision but merely generating an output.

Precommitments sidestep this by saying there is no decision at the point being analyzed. It essentially moves the decision to a different observer-moment. Thus allowing the analysis to be taken into account in the decision analysis. In Newcomb, th... (read more)

I didn't "choose" to generalize my position beyond conscious beings. It is an integral part of it. If perspectives are valid only for things that are conscious (however that is defined), then perspective has some prerequisite and is no longer fundamental. It would also give rise to the age-old reference class problem and no longer be a solution to anthropic paradoxes. E.g. are computer simulations conscious? answers to that would directly determine anthropic problems such as Nick Bostrom's simulation argument. 

Phenomenal consciousness is integral to p... (read more)

Consciousness has many contending definitions. e.g. if you take the view that consciousness is identified by physical complexity and the ability to process data then it doesn't have anything to do with perspective. I'm endorsing phenomenal consciousness, as in the hard problem of consciousness: we can describe brain functions purely physically,  yet it does not resolve why they are accompanied by subjective feelings. And this "feeling" is entirely first-person, I don't know your feelings because otherwise, I would be you instead of me. "What it means ... (read more)

I do think SIA and SSA are making extraordinary claims and the burden of proof is on them. I have proposed assuming the self as a random sample is wrong for several years. That is not the problem I have with this argument. What I disagree with is that your argument depends on phrases and concepts such as "'your' existence" and "who 'you' are" without even attempting to define what/which one is this 'you' refers to. My position is it refers to the self, based on the first-person perspective, which is fundamental,  a primitive concept. So it doesn't req... (read more)

Something's not adding up. You said that anthropic paradox is not about first-person perspective or consciousness. But later:

But in ISB there are no iterations in which you do not exist. The number of outcomes in which you are created equals the total number of iterations.

The most immediate question is the definition of "you" in this logic. Why can't thirders define "you" as a potentially existing person? In which case the statement would be false. If you define it as an actually existing person then which one? Seems to me you are using the word "you" to l... (read more)

I don't feel there is enough common ground for effective discussion. This is the first time I have seen the position that the sleeping beauty paradox disappears when the Heads awakening is sampled between Monday and Tuesday. 

Can you point out the difference why Tails and Monday, Tails and Tuesday are casually connected while the 100 people created by the incubator are not, by independent outcomes instead?

Nothing is stopping us to perceive the situations as different possible worlds, not different places in the same world.

All this post is trying to argue is statement like this requires some justification. Even if the justification is a mere stipulation, it should be at least recognized as an additional assumption. Given that anthropic problems often lead to controversial paradoxes, it is prudent to examine every assumption we make in solving them. 

If we modify the original sleeping beauty problem, such that if heads you will be awakened on one randomly sampled day (either Monday/ Tuesday), would you change your answer to 1/3?

Anthropic paradoxes happen only when we use events representing different self-locations in the same possible world. If the paradoxes are just problems of probability theory then why this limited scope? 

I do consider anthropic problems, in one sense or another, to be metaphysical. And I know there are people who disagree with this. But wouldn't stipulating anthropic paradoxes are solely probability problems also require arguments to justify? Apart from "a rule of thumb"?

Like Question 1 and traditional probability problems, Question 3's events reflect different possible worlds, different outcomes of the room-assigning experiment.  Question 2's supposed events reflect different locations of the self in the same possible world, i.e. different centred worlds. 

Controversial anthropic probability problems occur only when the latter type is used. So there is good reason to think this distinction is significant. 

It seems earlier posts and your post have defined anthropic shadow differently in subtle but important ways. The earlier posts by Christopher and Jessica argued AS is invalid: that there should be updates given I survived. Your post argued AS is valid: that there are games where no new information gained while playing can change your strategy (no useful updates). The former is focusing on updates, the latter is focusing on strategy. These two positions are not mutually exclusive. 

Personally, the concept of "useful update" seems situational. For exampl... (read more)

To my understanding, anthropic shadow refers to the absurdum logic in Leslie's Firing Squad: "Of course I have survived the firing squad, that is the only way I can make this observation. Nothing surprising here". Or reasonings such as "I have played the Russian roulette 1000 times, but I cannot increase my belief that there is actually no bullet in the gun because surviving is the only observation I can make".  

In the Chinese Roulette example, it is correct that the optimal strategy for the first round is also optimal for any following round. It is a... (read more)

That's not it. In your simulation you give equal chances for Head and Tails, and then subdivide Tails into two equiprobables of T1 and T2 while keeping all probability of Heads as H1. It's essentially a simulation based on SSA. Thirders would say that is the wrong model because it only considers cases where the room is occupied: H2 never appeared in your model. Thirders suggests there is new info when waking up in the experiment because it rejects H2. So the simulation should divide both Head and Tails into equiprobables of H1 H2 T1 T2. And waking up rejects H2 which pushes P(T) to 2/3. And then learning it is room 1 would push it back down to 1/2. 

To thirders, your simulation is incomplete. It should first include randomly choosing a room and finding it occupied. That will push the probability of Tails to 2/3. Knowing it is room 1 will push it back to 1/2. 

One thing that should be noted is that while Adam's argument is influential, especially since it first (to my knowledge) pointed out halfers have to either reject Bayesian updating upon learning it is Monday or accept a fair coin yet to be tossed has the probability other than 1/2. Thirders in general disagree with it in some crucial ways. Most notably Adam argued that there is no new information when waking up in the experiment. In contrast, most thirders endorsing some versions of SIA would say waking up in the experiment is evidence favouring Tails, whi... (read more)

I would also point out that FNC is not strictly a view-from-nowhere theory. The probability updates it proposes are still based on an implicit assumption of self-sampling. 

I really don't like the pragmatic argument against the simulation hypothesis. It demonstrates a common theme in anthropics which IMO is misleading the majority of discussions. By saying pre-simulation ancestors have impacts on how the singularity plays out therefore we ought to make decisions as if we are real pre-simulation people, it subtly shifts the objective of our decisions. Instead of the default objective of maximizing reward to ourselves, doing what's best for us in our world, it changes the objective to achieve a certain state of the universe con... (read more)

Exactly this. The problem with the current anthropic schools of thought is using this view-from-nowhere while simultaneously using the concept of "self" as a meaningful way of specifying a particular observer. It effectively jumps back and forth between the god's eye and first-person views with arbitrary assumptions to facilitate such transitions (e.g. treating the self as the random sample of a certain process carried out from the god's eye view). Treating the self as a given starting point and then reasoning about the world would be the way to dispel anthropic controversies. 

Let's take the AI driving problem in your paper as an example. The better strategy is regarded as the one that gives the better overall reward from all drivers. Whether the rewards of the two instances of a bad driver should be cumulatively or just count once is what divides halfers and thirders. Once that is determined the optimal decision can be calculated from the relative fractions of good/bad drivers/instances. It doesn't involve taking the AI's perspective in a particular instance and deciding the best decision for that particular instance, which req... (read more)

1. If you are born a month earlier as a preemie instead of full-term, it can be quite convincingly said you are still the same person. But if you are born a year earlier are you still the same person you are now? There are obviously going to be substantial physical differences, different sperm and egg, maybe different gender. If you are the first few human beings born, there will be few similarities between the physical person that's you in that case and the physical person you are now. So the birth rank discussion is not about if this physical person you reg

When you say the time of your birth is not special, you are already trying to judge it objectively. For you personally, the moment of your birth is special. And more relevantly to the DA, from a first-person perspective, the moment "now" is special. 

1. From an objective viewpoint, discussing a specific observer or a specific moment requires some explanation, something process pointing to it. e.g. a sampling process. Otherwise, it fails to be objective by inherently focusing on someone/sometime.
2. From a first-person perspective, discussions based on "I" and

I didn't explicitly claim so. But it involves reasoning from a perspective that is impartial to any moment. This independency manifested in its core assumption: that one should regard themself to be randomly selected from all observers from its reference class from past, present and future

if you get a reward for guessing if your number is >5 correctly, then you should guess that your number is >5 every time.

I am a little unsure about your meaning here. Say you get a reward for guessing if your number is <5 correctly, then would you also guess your number is <5 each time? 

I'm guessing that is not what you mean, but instead, you are thinking as the experiment is repeated more and more the relative frequency of you finding your own number >5 would approach 95%. What I am saying is this belief requires an assumption about treating the "I" as a random sample. Whereas for the non-anthropic problem, it doesn't. 

For the non-anthropic problem, why take the detour of asking a different person each toss? You can personally take it 100 times, and since it's a fair die, it would be around 95 times that it lands >5. Obviously guessing yes is the best strategy for maximizing your personal interest. There is no assuming the I" as a random sample, or making forced transcodings. 

Let me construct a repeatable anthropic problem. Suppose tonight during your sleep you will be accurately cloned with memory preserved. Waking up the next morning, you may find yourself to b... (read more)

Thank you for the kind words. I understand the stance about self-locating probability. That's the part I get most disagreements. 

To me the difference is for the unfair coin, you can treat the reference class as all tosses from unfair coins that you don't know how. Then the symmetry between Head\Tail holds, and you can say in this kind of tosses the relative frequency would be 50%. But for the self-locating probabilities in the fission problem, there really is nothing pointing to any number. That is, unless we take the average of all agents and discard... (read more)

In anthropic questions, the probability predictions about ourselves (self-locating probabilities) lead to paradoxes. At the same time, they also have no operational value such as decision-making. In a practical sense, we really shouldn't make such probabilistic predictions. Here in this post I'm trying to explain the theoretical reason against it. 

Consciousness is a property of the first-person: e.g. To me I am conscious but inherently can't know you are. Whether or not something is conscious is asking if you think from that thing's perspective. So there is no typical or atypical conscious being, from my perspective I am "the" conscious being, if I reason from something else's perspective, then that thing is "the" conscious being instead. 

Our usual notion of considering ourselves as a typical conscious being is because we are more used to thinking from the perspectives of things similar to us. ... (read more)