On Sunday 25 May 2008 10:06:11 am, Mark Waser wrote: > > Read the appendix, p37ff. He's not making arguments -- he's explaining, > > with a > > few pointers into the literature, some parts of completely standard and > > accepted economics and game theory. It's all very basic stuff. > > The problem with "accepted economics and game theory" is that in a proper > scientific sense, they actually prove very little and certainly far, FAR > less than people extrapolate them to mean (or worse yet, "prove").
Abusus non tollit usum. > All of the scientific experiments in game theory are very, VERY limited and > deal with entities with little memory in small, toy systems. If you > extrapolate their results with no additional input and no emergent effects, > you can end up with arguments like Omohundro's BUT claiming that this > extrapolation *proves* anything is very poor science. It's just > speculation/science fiction and there are any number of reasons to believe > that Omohundro's theories are incorrect -- the largest one, of course, being > "If all goal-based systems end up evil, why isn't every *naturally* > intelligent entity evil? Actually, modern (post-Axelrod) evolutionary game theory handles this pretty well, and shows the existence of what I call the moral ladder. BTW, I've had extended discussions with Steve O. about it, and consider his ultimate position to be over-pessimistic -- but his basic starting point (and the econ theory he references) is sound. Josh ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=103754539-40ed26 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
