Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
George, great. - Absolute measures?
So you want to supersede the Archimede-Einstein wisdom ('gimme a fixed
point...to: total relativity) - which is OK with me. I like the way you
approach questions (big deal for youG).
Main topic: Reverse Hubble? do we go towards a ;Big Bang', which is indeed
a slow fade-out into a zero-point? (a slow No-Bang, indeed).
I had questions about that expansionary idea, ingenious as it was. Brent did
not like my skepticism, but I am no physicist and can take a physicist-put
down.
I was missing the 'objective' (forgive me for this adjective) - all
encompassing study to exclude ALL other possibilities for a redshift. (a
topical impossibility). I had two little questions (never got answers):
1. do the 'atomic measures' (hypothetical as they may be) like distance
between nucleus and electrons (calculational fairytale) also expand? or
2. does the physical story of today's intrinsic measures stay put and only
the biggies expand?
In the first case nothing really happens, we just believe in a narrative.
So as much as I applaud your shrinking idea, it is still part of the
narrative.
But it is a great idea. Thanks.
John M
On 10/31/07, George Levy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Could we relate the expansion of the universe to the decrease in
measure of a given observer? High measure corresponds to a small
universe and conversely, low measure to a large one. For the observer
the decrease in his measure would be caused by all the possible mode of
decay of all the nuclear particles necessary for his consciousness.
Corresponding to this decrease, the radius of the observable universe
increases to make the universe less likely.
This would provide an experimental way to measure absolute measure.
I am not a proponent of ASSA, rather I believe in RSSA and in a
cosmological principle for measure: that measure is independent of when
or where the observer makes an observation. However, I thought that
tying cosmic expansion to measure may be an interesting avenue of inquiry.
George Levy
Rolf Nelson wrote:
(Warning: This post assumes an familiarity with UD+ASSA and with the
cosmological Measure Problem.)
Observational Consequences:
1. Provides a possible explanation for the Measure Problem of why we
shouldn't be extremely surprised to find we live in a lawful
universe, rather than an extremely chaotic universe, or a homogeneous
cloud of gas.
2. May help solve the Doomsday Argument in a finite universe, since
you probably have at least a little more measure than a typical
specific individual in the middle of a Galactic Empire, since you are
easier to find with a small search algorithm than someone surrounded
by enormous numbers of people.
3. For similar reasons, may help solve a variant of the Doomsday
Argument where the universe is infinite. This variant DA asks, if
there's currently a Galactic Empire 1 Hubble Volumes away with an
immensely large number of people, why wasn't I born there instead of
here?
4. May help solve the Simulation Argument, again because a search
algorithm to find a particular simulation among all the adjacent
computations in a Galactic Empire is longer (and therefore, by UD
+ASSA, has less measure) than a search algorithm to find you.
5. In basic UD+ASSA (on a typical Turing Machine), there is a probably
a strict linear ordering corresponding to when the events at each
point in spacetime were calculated; I would argue that we should
expect to see evidence of this in our observations if basic UD+ASSA is
true. However, we do not see any total ordering in the physical
Universe; quite the reverse: we see a homogeneous, isotropic Universe.
This is evidence (but not proof) that either UD+ASSA is completely
wrong, or that if UD+ASSA is true, then it's run on something other
than a typical linear Turing Machine. (However, if you still want use
a different machine to solve the Measure Problem, then feel free,
but you first need to show that your non-Turing-machine variant still
solves the Measure Problem.)
Decision Theory Consequences (Including Moral Consequences):
Every decision algorithm that I've ever seen is prey to paradoxes
where the decision theory either crashes (fails to produce a
decision), or requires an agent to do things that are bizarre, self-
destructive, and evil. (If you like, substitute 'counter-intuitive'
for 'bizarre, self-destructive, and evil.') For example: UD+ASSA,
Accepting the Simulation Argument, Utilitarianism without
discounting, and Utilitarianism with time and space discounting all
have places where they seem to fail.
UD+ASSA, like the Simulation Argument, has the following additional
problem: while some forms of Utilitarianism may only fail in
hypothetical future situations (by which point maybe we'll have come
up with a better theory), UD+ASSA seems to fail *right here and now*.
That is, UD+ASSA, like the Simulation Argument, seems to call on you
to do
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
On Oct 31, 7:40 pm, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Decisions require some value structure. To get values from an ontology you'd have to get around the Naturalistic fallacy. Brent Meeker- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - Decision theory has this same problem. Decision theory doesn't require values. The preferences (values) are plugged in from outside the theory. Decision theory is merely a way of computing the best way to achieve the desired outcomes. It doesn't say what we should desire though. Decision theory is too hard for me and too complex. What I'm suspecting is that it's not the final word. I'm looking for a higher level theory capable of deriving the results in decision theory indirectly without me having to directly work them out. My suspicion currently focuses on communication theory, knowledge representation and data modelling (ontology). Rather than 'getting values out' I think values are most likely somehow implicitly built into the structure of ontology itself. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
Le 26-oct.-07, à 20:18, Brent Meeker a écrit : Bruno Marchal wrote: ... Is God good? Well, according to Plato, accepting the rather natural theological interpretation of the Parmenides (like Plotinus), there is a sense to say that God is good, but probably not in the Christian sense (if that can be made precise). Indeed, Plato's God is just Truth. And Truth is not good as such, but the awareness of truth, or simply the search of truth, is, for a Platonist, a prerequisite for the *possible* development of goodness. Truth is necessary for justice, and justice is necessary for goodness. That's the idea. It makes knowledge (and thus truth) a good thing, in principle. But Vance's novel rises a doubt. Actually, that doubt can rise through the reading of the first Pythagorean writings, which insist so much on hiding their knowledge to the non-initiated people, making them secret. (according to the legend, their kill a disciple who dares to make public the discovery of the irrationality of the square root of 2). Maimonides also, in his Guide for the perplexed insists that fundamental knowledge has to be reserved for the initiated or the elite people. Fundamentally I don't know. I know a lot of particular case where knowledge can be bad. But this happens always in human, too much human practical circumstances, like during war, illness, etc. (it is not good that your enemies *knows* where are your missiles; it is not good to tell a bad new to some old dying people, etc. But this never concerns fundamental truth. But what truth is fundamental? OK. I should not have talk about fundamental truth, but about fundamental question. By which I mean where do I come from?, what can we hope, what is the nature of matter, is life a dream? etc. None of those question are really addressed by today's science which focuses on the physical aspect of reality without really tackling seriously (in the doubting way) its metaphysical aspect and its psycho or theo logical aspect. Quantum gravity seems like an esoteric game to most people and so you can say anything you want about it without any ethical implications. But when quantum gravity seems to provide a non-supernatural cosmogony, religions are threatened and suddenly it's like bad news to a dying man (and we're all dying). If a religion is threatened by science, it means it is build on bad faith. At least with comp science has to be a part of theology. If theology does not extend science, it means it is wrong. Now sometimes some scientist talk like if they were priest, and that is two times more wrong than usual priest talk. Religion, like science, is threatened by bad science, and even more by bad religion (religion based on blind faith or authoritative argument). Now, don't tell me that a theory like quantum gravity provides a non supernatural cosmogony given that quantum gravity study quantum gravity and perhaps the physical universe, but not the mind, nor the soul, the person or consciousness. It is not its subject a priori. To look at quantum gravity as a cosmogony is a confusion between subject like physics and theology. This threatens theology, because without making some very strong physicalist assumption, which are incompatible with the mechanist thesis, it consists to make physics a religion without saying! This is just dishonest. Such a physical universe is worst than a white male God, because it looks scientific (unlike the male God), but it isn't. It looks that in winter, people forget all about the 1/3 distinction. In Quantum gravity this 1/3 distinction is a bit hidden. You have to postulate comp, and thus Everett before. (Well, as you know, you have to derive Everett but it is not the point here). Coincidentally, James Watson has just lost his job because he said some things that, while narrowly true, support a racist view of Africa. Were they fundamental or does fundamental = of no import in society? I love Watson because I discover the math of computer science by myself in his book Molecular Biology of the Gene. This book has played a so big role in my youth that I have been using for years the word Watson as a synonym of Bible. But J. Watson has become the worst materialist I have ever heard about. According to a talk I have followed some years ago (I should search for the reference) Watson seems to believe only in ATOMS. Someone told him Surely you believe in molecules M. Watson. And James Watson would have answered: No, I don't, there are only atoms!. Weird By fundamental I really mean the same as in fundamental science. Unless in company of theological hypothesis, it has no more impact on society other than its technical products. Einstein discovered the relation between matter and energy only through a deep motivation for fundamental question: what is matter, what is the nature of light, how could resemble the universe when seen by
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
In (3) the universe doesn't have a high aIgorithmic complexity. I should have said that in (3) our decisions don't have any consequences, so we disregard them even if we do care what happens in them. The end result is the same: I'll act as if I only live in (2). In the (3) I gave, you're indexed so that the thermal fluctuation doesn't dissolve until November 1, so your actions still have consequences. I will throw a fair coin. If the coin lands heads up, you will be instantaneously vaporized. If it lands tails up, I will exactly double your measure (say by creating a copy of your brain and continuously keeping it synchronized). This is one of a larger class of problems related to volition, and the coupling of my qualia to an external reality, that I don't currently have an answer for. I want to live on in the current Universe, I don't to die and have a duplicate of myself created in a different Universe. I want to eat a real ice cream cone, I don't want you to stimulate my neurons to make me imagine I'm eating an ice cream cone. I would argue that a world where I can interact with real people is, in some sense, better than a world where I interact with imaginary people who I believe are real. Well, let's consider an agent who happens to have preferences of a special form. It so happens that for him, the multiverse can be divided into several regions, the descriptions of which will be denoted S_1, S_2, S_3, etc., such that S_1 U S_2 U S_3 ... = S and his preferences over the whole multiverse can be expressed as a linear combination of his preferences over those regions. That means, there exists functions P(.) and U(.) such that he prefers the multiverse S to the multiverse T if and only if P(S_1)*U(S_1) + P(S_2)*U(S_2) + P(S_3)*U(S_3) + ... P(T_1)*U(T_1) + P(T_2)*U(T_2) + P(T_3)*U(T_3) ... I haven't worked out all of the details of this formalism, but I hope you can see where I'm going with this... You have a general model, which can encompass classical decision theory, but can also encompass other models as well. It's not immediately clear to me what benefit, if any, we get from such a general model. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
Wei Dai wrote: Rolf Nelson wrote: In the (3) I gave, you're indexed so that the thermal fluctuation doesn't dissolve until November 1, so your actions still have consequences. Still not a problem: the space-time region that I can affect in (3) is too small (i.e., its measure is too small, complexity too large) for me to care much about the consequences of my actions on it. This is one of a larger class of problems related to volition, and the coupling of my qualia to an external reality, that I don't currently have an answer for. I want to live on in the current Universe, I don't to die and have a duplicate of myself created in a different Universe. I want to eat a real ice cream cone, I don't want you to stimulate my neurons to make me imagine I'm eating an ice cream cone. I would argue that a world where I can interact with real people is, in some sense, better than a world where I interact with imaginary people who I believe are real. To me, these examples show that we do not care just about qualia, but also about attributes and features of the multiverse that can not be classified as qualia, and therefore we should rule out decision theories that cannot incorporate preferences over non-qualia. You have a general model, which can encompass classical decision theory, but can also encompass other models as well. It's not immediately clear to me what benefit, if any, we get from such a general model. Fair question. I'll summarize: 1. We are forced into considering such a general model because we don't have a more specific one that doesn't lead to counterintuitive implications. 2. It shows us what probabilities really are. For someone whose preferences over the multiverse can be expressed as a linear combination of preferences over regions of the multiverse, a probability function can be interpreted as a representation of how much he cares about each region. I would argue that most of us in fact have preferences of this form, at least approximately, which explains why probability theory has been useful for us. This seems to just reverse the decision theoretic meaning of probability. Usually one cares more about probables outcome and ignores the very improbable ones. For example I prefer a region in which I'm rich, handsome, and loved by all beautiful women - but I don't assign much probability to it. 3. It gives us a useful framework for considering anthropic reasoning problems such as the Doomsday Argument and the Simulation Argument. We can now recast these questions into Do we prefer a multiverse where people in our situation act as if doom is near? and Do we prefer a multiverse where people in our situation act as if they are in simulations? I argue that its easier for us to consider these questions in this form. But it seems the answer might depend on whether the premise were true - which makes the problem harder. Brent Meeker 4. For someone on a practical mission to write an AI that makes sensible decisions, perhaps the model can serve as a starting point and as illustration of how far away we still are from that goal. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
Rolf Nelson wrote: In the (3) I gave, you're indexed so that the thermal fluctuation doesn't dissolve until November 1, so your actions still have consequences. Still not a problem: the space-time region that I can affect in (3) is too small (i.e., its measure is too small, complexity too large) for me to care much about the consequences of my actions on it. This is one of a larger class of problems related to volition, and the coupling of my qualia to an external reality, that I don't currently have an answer for. I want to live on in the current Universe, I don't to die and have a duplicate of myself created in a different Universe. I want to eat a real ice cream cone, I don't want you to stimulate my neurons to make me imagine I'm eating an ice cream cone. I would argue that a world where I can interact with real people is, in some sense, better than a world where I interact with imaginary people who I believe are real. To me, these examples show that we do not care just about qualia, but also about attributes and features of the multiverse that can not be classified as qualia, and therefore we should rule out decision theories that cannot incorporate preferences over non-qualia. You have a general model, which can encompass classical decision theory, but can also encompass other models as well. It's not immediately clear to me what benefit, if any, we get from such a general model. Fair question. I'll summarize: 1. We are forced into considering such a general model because we don't have a more specific one that doesn't lead to counterintuitive implications. 2. It shows us what probabilities really are. For someone whose preferences over the multiverse can be expressed as a linear combination of preferences over regions of the multiverse, a probability function can be interpreted as a representation of how much he cares about each region. I would argue that most of us in fact have preferences of this form, at least approximately, which explains why probability theory has been useful for us. 3. It gives us a useful framework for considering anthropic reasoning problems such as the Doomsday Argument and the Simulation Argument. We can now recast these questions into Do we prefer a multiverse where people in our situation act as if doom is near? and Do we prefer a multiverse where people in our situation act as if they are in simulations? I argue that its easier for us to consider these questions in this form. 4. For someone on a practical mission to write an AI that makes sensible decisions, perhaps the model can serve as a starting point and as illustration of how far away we still are from that goal. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
On Oct 31, 3:28 pm, Wei Dai [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 4. For someone on a practical mission to write an AI that makes sensible decisions, perhaps the model can serve as a starting point and as illustration of how far away we still are from that goal. Heh. Yes, very interesting indeed. But a huge body of knowledge and a great deal of smartness is needed to even begin to grasp all that stuff ;) As regards AI I gotta wonder whether that 'Decision Theory' stuff is really 'the heart of the matter' - perhaps its the wrong level of abstraction for the problem. That is it say, it would be great if the AI could work out all the decision theory for itself, rather than having us trying to program it in (and probably failing miserably). Certainly, I'm sure as hell not smart enough to come up with a working model of decisions. So, rather than trying to do the impossible, better to search for a higher level of abstraction. Look for the answers in communication theory/ontology, rather than decision theory. Decision theory would be derivative of an effective ontology - that saves me the bother of trying to work it out ;) --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Oct 31, 3:28 pm, Wei Dai [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 4. For someone on a practical mission to write an AI that makes sensible decisions, perhaps the model can serve as a starting point and as illustration of how far away we still are from that goal. Heh. Yes, very interesting indeed. But a huge body of knowledge and a great deal of smartness is needed to even begin to grasp all that stuff ;) As regards AI I gotta wonder whether that 'Decision Theory' stuff is really 'the heart of the matter' - perhaps its the wrong level of abstraction for the problem. That is it say, it would be great if the AI could work out all the decision theory for itself, rather than having us trying to program it in (and probably failing miserably). Certainly, I'm sure as hell not smart enough to come up with a working model of decisions. So, rather than trying to do the impossible, better to search for a higher level of abstraction. Look for the answers in communication theory/ontology, rather than decision theory. Decision theory would be derivative of an effective ontology - that saves me the bother of trying to work it out ;) Decisions require some value structure. To get values from an ontology you'd have to get around the Naturalistic fallacy. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
How do the UDASSA, or the UDISTASSA, people take the difference
between first person and third person into account? Do they?
With the RSSA (through the use of the UD) it should be clear that THIRD
person determinism and computability entails FIRST person indeterminacy
and observable non computability (like what we can see when
preparing many particles in the state 1/sqrt(2)(up+down) and looking
them in the base {up, down}.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
On Oct 25, 7:59 am, Wei Dai [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't care about (1) and (3) because those universes are too arbitrary or random, and I can defend that by pointing to their high algorithmic complexities. In (3) the universe doesn't have a high aIgorithmic complexity. Any theory that just says we only care about universes with low algorithmic complexity leads to (3) (assuming that, by the universe, you have the usual meaning of that vast space we seem to live in rather than my immediate perceptions.) The specific reason I like UDASSA is because it gives you a framework for saying, the universe, plus my index in the universe, has a low algorithmic complexity. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
However, to demonstrate would probably be difficult, and if we had something powerful enough to do this, we might have a theory that allows UDASSA to make novel predictions about the observed Universe. To give examples of how hard this is: 1. What is the probability that our Universe has existed since the Big Bang, but will abruptly end tomorrow? There have been about 2^16 days since the Big Bang, so we can get a lower bound of probability in UDASSA with 1 / 2^((length of a binary program that runs a Universe for x subjective time, then halts) + (about 16 bits)). I don't know how to program any of the basic TM's, and can't personally estimate of the complexity of the first term. And this is just to get an lower bound, the actual probability is probably much higher. 2. Take a real-world example, like the Pioneer Anomaly; does new laws of physics caused the Pioneer Anomaly have a higher or lower complexity than there is a mundane explanation for the Pioneer Anomaly? Good luck! On the plus side, one wouldn't have to solve every problem to make UDASSA into a science; one would just have to solve (successfully predict) a handful of novel problems (that aren't solvable by other methods) to demonstrate that is true and useful. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
Rolf Nelson wrote: On Oct 25, 7:59 am, Wei Dai [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't care about (1) and (3) because those universes are too arbitrary or random, and I can defend that by pointing to their high algorithmic complexities. In (3) the universe doesn't have a high aIgorithmic complexity. I should have said that in (3) our decisions don't have any consequences, so we disregard them even if we do care what happens in them. The end result is the same: I'll act as if I only live in (2). From your post yesterday: True. So how would an alternative scheme work, formally? Perhaps utility can be formally based on the Measure of Qualia (observer moments). This is one of the possibilities I had considered and rejected, because it also leads to counterintuitive consequences. For example, suppose someone gives your the following offer: I will throw a fair coin. If the coin lands heads up, you will be instantaneously vaporized. If it lands tails up, I will exactly double your measure (say by creating a copy of your brain and continuously keeping it synchronized). Given your measure of qualia-based formalization of utility, and assuming that you're selfish so that you're only interested in the measure of the qualia of your own future selves, you'd have to be indifferent between accepting this offer and not accepting it. Instead, here's my current approach for a formalization of decision theory. Let a set S be the description of an agent's knowledge of the multiverse. For example, for a Tegmarkian version of the multiverse, elements of S have the form (s, t) where s is a statement of second-order logic, and t is either true or false. For simplicity, assume that the decision-making agent is logically omniscient, which means he knows the truth value of all statements of second-order logic, except those that depend on his own decisions. We'll say that he prefers choice A to choice B if and only if he prefers S U C(E,A) to S U C(E,B), where U is the union operator, C(x,y) is the logical consequences of everyone having qualia x deciding to do y, and E consists of all of his own memories and observations. In this most basic version, there is not even a notion of how much one cares about a universe. I'm relatively confident that it doesn't lead to any counterintuitive implications, but that's mainly because it is too weak to lead to any kind of implications at all. So how do we explain what probability is, and why the concept has been so useful? Well, let's consider an agent who happens to have preferences of a special form. It so happens that for him, the multiverse can be divided into several regions, the descriptions of which will be denoted S_1, S_2, S_3, etc., such that S_1 U S_2 U S_3 ... = S and his preferences over the whole multiverse can be expressed as a linear combination of his preferences over those regions. That means, there exists functions P(.) and U(.) such that he prefers the multiverse S to the multiverse T if and only if P(S_1)*U(S_1) + P(S_2)*U(S_2) + P(S_3)*U(S_3) + ... P(T_1)*U(T_1) + P(T_2)*U(T_2) + P(T_3)*U(T_3) ... I haven't worked out all of the details of this formalism, but I hope you can see where I'm going with this... --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
Wei, your examples are convincing, although other decision models have similar problems. If your two examples were the only problems that UDASSA had, I would have few qualms about adopting it over the other decision models I've seen. Note that even if you adopt a decision model, you still in practice (as a human being) can keep an all- purpose escape hatch where you can go against your formal model if there are edge cases where you dislike its results. In other words, I would prioritize UDASSA doesn't yet make many falsifiable predictions and We don't see a total ordering of points in spacetime, so UDASSA probably doesn't run on a typical Turing Machine as larger problems. But sure, if UDASSA can be improved to solve the morality edge-cases that you gave, I'm all for the improvements. As far as our observations of the Universe, I don't quite follow: how can you go from in terms of morality, probability is imperfect to there's no such thing as probability, therefore there's no measure problem? --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
To put it more generally, thinking in terms of how much you care about the consequences of your actions *allows* you to have an overall preference about A and B that can be expressed as an expected utility: P(A) * U(A) + P(B) * U(B) since P(A) and P(B) can denote how much you care about universes A and B, but it doesn't *force* you to have a preference of this form. Standard decision theory does force you to. True. So how would an alternative scheme work, formally? Perhaps utility can be formally based on the Measure of Qualia (observer moments). If you have a halting oracle, certain knowledge of a Universal Prior, and infinite cognitive resources, you can choose your action to maximize a utility function U(X); X is the sequence M(Q1), M(Q2), ..., where the measures of all possible Qualia are enumerated. In the typical case of everyday life decisions in 2007, M would often reduce to an objective probability oP; and U(X) = U(M(Q1), M(Q2), ...) maybe has an affine (in other words, a decision-theory-order- preserving) transformation, for a typical 2007 human, to some function U(how good life is expected to be for earthly observer O1, how good life is expected to be for earthly observer O2, ...), (pretending for now that you don't have any way of altering the total measure taken up by a human being.) How good life is expected to be for observer O1 in turn perhaps reduces, in typical life, to oP(O1 experiences Q1) * (desirableness of Q1) + oP(O1 experiences Q2) * (desirableness of Q2) + ... But now we have to say that no one actually has infinite cognitive resources, let alone a halting Oracle. So, we probably still want a logical probability lP to deal with things like To what extent do I currently believe that the Riemann Hypothesis is true. So you can't choose an action to maximize U directly, instead you want to maximize the expected utility, by maximizing the following: lP(X1) * U(X1) + lP(X2) * U(X2) + ... Humans would perceive, as subjective probability, a combination of the Measure-based objective probability and the logic-based logical probability. Clear as mud, I'm sure. Plus the odds are that I got something wrong in the details. But that's my take on it, anyway. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
Hi all, One thing I still don't understand, is in what sense exactly is the Measure Problem a problem? Why isn't it good enough to say that everything exists, therefore we (i.e. people living in a lawful universe) must exist, and therefore we shouldn't be surprised that we exist. If the Measure Problem is a problem, then why isn't there also an analogous Lottery Problem for people who have won the lottery? thank you Wei Dei, I have expressed something similar concerning the Doomsday Argument which has the same reasoning flaw. You can't reason about probabilities inside the system and be surprised that you are in location A or B. Example: 1) If I draw from an urn with 1 Million white balls and 1 black ball, I should be pretty surprised if I draw the black one. 2) If I am a black ball in an urn (same distribution as above) and I only become conscious if I am drawn and I suddenly wake up to find myself drawn, I shouldn't be surprised at all - my being drawn was a condition for being a perceptive being. I think a mixing up of these two viewpoints underly much of measure problem, doomsday and other arguments of the same sort. Regards, Günther -- Günther Greindl Department of Philosophy of Science University of Vienna [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.univie.ac.at/Wissenschaftstheorie/ Blog: http://dao.complexitystudies.org/ Site: http://www.complexitystudies.org --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
Günther Greindl wrote: Hi all, One thing I still don't understand, is in what sense exactly is the Measure Problem a problem? Why isn't it good enough to say that everything exists, therefore we (i.e. people living in a lawful universe) must exist, and therefore we shouldn't be surprised that we exist. If the Measure Problem is a problem, then why isn't there also an analogous Lottery Problem for people who have won the lottery? That's a good argument assuming some laws of physics. But as I understood it, the measure problem was to explain the law-like evolution of the universe as a opposed to a chaotic/random/white-rabbit universe. Is it your interpretation that, among all possible worlds, somebody has to live in law-like ones; so it might as well be us? Brent Meeker thank you Wei Dei, I have expressed something similar concerning the Doomsday Argument which has the same reasoning flaw. You can't reason about probabilities inside the system and be surprised that you are in location A or B. Example: 1) If I draw from an urn with 1 Million white balls and 1 black ball, I should be pretty surprised if I draw the black one. 2) If I am a black ball in an urn (same distribution as above) and I only become conscious if I am drawn and I suddenly wake up to find myself drawn, I shouldn't be surprised at all - my being drawn was a condition for being a perceptive being. I think a mixing up of these two viewpoints underly much of measure problem, doomsday and other arguments of the same sort. Regards, Günther --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
Rolf Nelson wrote: Wei, your examples are convincing, although other decision models have similar problems. If your two examples were the only problems that UDASSA had, I would have few qualms about adopting it over the other decision models I've seen. Note that even if you adopt a decision model, you still in practice (as a human being) can keep an all- purpose escape hatch where you can go against your formal model if there are edge cases where you dislike its results. For me, this line of thought started with the question what does probability mean if everything exists? (Actually, before that I had thought about what does probability mean if brain copying is possible?) I've entertained many different possible answers. I looked at decision theories not because I'm looking for a decision procedure to adopt, but because that is one way probability is interpreted and justified. I'm actually more interested in the philosophical issues rather than the practical ones. Besides, if you program a decision procedure into an AI, it had better be flawless because there may be no escape hatches. In other words, I would prioritize UDASSA doesn't yet make many falsifiable predictions and We don't see a total ordering of points in spacetime, so UDASSA probably doesn't run on a typical Turing Machine as larger problems. But sure, if UDASSA can be improved to solve the morality edge-cases that you gave, I'm all for the improvements. I consider UD+ASSA to be a theory of how people reason, or how they ought to reason, and as such, it does make falsifiable predictions. In fact, as I showed in several examples, the predictions have been falsified. About your comment We don't see a total ordering of points in spacetime, so UDASSA probably doesn't run on a typical Turing Machine. I don't follow your reasoning here as to why UD+ASSA+typical TM implies that we should see a total ordering of points in spacetime. Isn't it possible that such an ordering exists internal to the TM's program, but it's not visible to the people inside the universe that the TM simulates? As far as our observations of the Universe, I don't quite follow: how can you go from in terms of morality, probability is imperfect to there's no such thing as probability, therefore there's no measure problem? My reasoning goes like this: 1. We need to reinterpret probability, from subjective degree of belief to how much do I care about something in order to fix counterintuitive implications of decision theory. 2. Once we do that, we no longer seem to have a solution to the measure problem. 3. Let's look closer at the nature of the problem. It seems to consist of two parts: (A) Why am I living in an apparently lawful universe? (B) Why should I expect the future to continue to be lawful? 4. I think (B) is the easier question, and I answered it in a previous post in this thread. (A) is more problematic, but my tentative answer is that, as Brent Meeker stated it, among all possible worlds, somebody has to live in law-like ones; so it might as well be us. I'm out of time today, and will respond to your other post tomorrow. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
Brent Meeker wrote: That's a good argument assuming some laws of physics. But as I understood it, the measure problem was to explain the law-like evolution of the universe as a opposed to a chaotic/random/white-rabbit universe. Is it your interpretation that, among all possible worlds, somebody has to live in law-like ones; so it might as well be us? Yes. See my other post today. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
Le 25-oct.-07, à 18:22, Tom Caylor a écrit : How about SAI (Super Intelligence)? Or God? Seriously, of course. The problem with generic SAI is the one you brought up: how do you know the SAI is good? This problem does not exist with a good God. Also the problem of what is the arrow, how do you make it, does not exist with the Christian God, since the Christian God (and no other one) made the arrow himself. Hmmm It seems to me you are quite quick here. Especially after reading Vance novels, as linked by Marc. Is God good? Well, according to Plato, accepting the rather natural theological interpretation of the Parmenides (like Plotinus), there is a sense to say that God is good, but probably not in the Christian sense (if that can be made precise). Indeed, Plato's God is just Truth. And Truth is not good as such, but the awareness of truth, or simply the search of truth, is, for a Platonist, a prerequisite for the *possible* development of goodness. Truth is necessary for justice, and justice is necessary for goodness. That's the idea. It makes knowledge (and thus truth) a good thing, in principle. But Vance's novel rises a doubt. Actually, that doubt can rise through the reading of the first Pythagorean writings, which insist so much on hiding their knowledge to the non-initiated people, making them secret. (according to the legend, their kill a disciple who dares to make public the discovery of the irrationality of the square root of 2). Maimonides also, in his Guide for the perplexed insists that fundamental knowledge has to be reserved for the initiated or the elite people. Fundamentally I don't know. I know a lot of particular case where knowledge can be bad. But this happens always in human, too much human practical circumstances, like during war, illness, etc. (it is not good that your enemies *knows* where are your missiles; it is not good to tell a bad new to some old dying people, etc. But this never concerns fundamental truth. I guess it *is* a question of faith. Of course, something like complete knowledge, would be bad, making life without any purpose (at least it is natural to fear that), but in this case both lobianity, and well, may be things like Christianity, remind us about our finiteness and about the fact that complete knowledge is inconsistent (even for Gods, but not for the Unnameable, making it above thinking (something Plotinus understood, but I am not sure Christians, following here Aristotle theology, take this seriously into account but then they do have confuse temporal and spiritual power isn't it?). Now, Tom, to come back to the present thread, i.e. Wei Dai's question on the meaning of the measure problem with respect to the ASSA philosophy, frankly I am not sure that saying that God is responsible for the indexical arrow will put light. It looks a bit like closing even the possibility of progressing, given that God can hardly be invoked in any attempt to scientifically explains something (cf scientifically means based on a clear and doubtable (if not refutable) theory). So you would have to elaborate, but as we have already discussed, to use God here would mean that you do have a doubtable and clear theory of God. OK if you are using lobian theology (which is cristal clear I think), but which cannot be related so easily with any human religion without much work on both human and machine and comp, etc. We would quickly been led to propositions far more difficult, not to say controversial, than Wei Dai's original question. Of course, here, those who take the primacy of a physical universe for granted, somehow, makes the same mistake than those who take God or a God for granted. Such moves hide the questions through incommunicable (perhaps even false) certitude. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
Bruno Marchal wrote: ... Is God good? Well, according to Plato, accepting the rather natural theological interpretation of the Parmenides (like Plotinus), there is a sense to say that God is good, but probably not in the Christian sense (if that can be made precise). Indeed, Plato's God is just Truth. And Truth is not good as such, but the awareness of truth, or simply the search of truth, is, for a Platonist, a prerequisite for the *possible* development of goodness. Truth is necessary for justice, and justice is necessary for goodness. That's the idea. It makes knowledge (and thus truth) a good thing, in principle. But Vance's novel rises a doubt. Actually, that doubt can rise through the reading of the first Pythagorean writings, which insist so much on hiding their knowledge to the non-initiated people, making them secret. (according to the legend, their kill a disciple who dares to make public the discovery of the irrationality of the square root of 2). Maimonides also, in his Guide for the perplexed insists that fundamental knowledge has to be reserved for the initiated or the elite people. Fundamentally I don't know. I know a lot of particular case where knowledge can be bad. But this happens always in human, too much human practical circumstances, like during war, illness, etc. (it is not good that your enemies *knows* where are your missiles; it is not good to tell a bad new to some old dying people, etc. But this never concerns fundamental truth. But what truth is fundamental? Quantum gravity seems like an esoteric game to most people and so you can say anything you want about it without any ethical implications. But when quantum gravity seems to provide a non-supernatural cosmogony, religions are threatened and suddenly it's like bad news to a dying man (and we're all dying). Coincidentally, James Watson has just lost his job because he said some things that, while narrowly true, support a racist view of Africa. Were they fundamental or does fundamental = of no import in society? Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
Rolf Nelson wrote: In standard decision theory, odds (subjective probabilities) are separated from utilities. Is how much you care about the consequences of your actions isomorphic to odds, or is there some subtlety I'm missing here? Your question shows that someone finally understand what I've been trying to say, I think. how much you care about the consequences of your actions is almost isomorphic to odds, except that I've found a couple of cases where thinking in terms of the former works (i.e. delivers intuitive results) whereas the latter doesn't. The first I described in against UD+ASSA, part 1 at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/browse_frm/thread/dd21cbec7063215b. The second one is, what if your preferences for two universes are not independent? For example, suppose you have the following preferences, from most preferred to least preferred: 1) eat an apple in universe A and eat an orange in universe B 2) eat an orange in universe A and eat an apple in universe B 3) eat an apple in both universes 4) eat an orange in both universes I don't see why this kind of preference must be irrational if you believe that both A and B exists. But in standard decision theory, this kind of preference is not allowed. To put it more generally, thinking in terms of how much you care about the consequences of your actions *allows* you to have an overall preference about A and B that can be expressed as an expected utility: P(A) * U(A) + P(B) * U(B) since P(A) and P(B) can denote how much you care about universes A and B, but it doesn't *force* you to have a preference of this form. Standard decision theory does force you to. One thing unclear is whether you're advocating moral relativism, or whether you simply want an escape clause in your formal decision theory so that if you don't like what your decision theory tells you to do, you can alter your decision theory on the spot on a case-by- case basis. That's a very good question. I think if someone were to show me an objective decision procedure that actually makes sense, I think I would give up moral relativism. But in the mean time, I don't see how to avoid these counterintuitive implications without it. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
Le 25-oct.-07, à 03:25, Wei Dai a écrit :
Rolf Nelson wrote:
1. Provides a possible explanation for the Measure Problem of why we
shouldn't be extremely surprised to find we live in a lawful
universe, rather than an extremely chaotic universe, or a homogeneous
cloud of gas.
One thing I still don't understand, is in what sense exactly is the
Measure
Problem a problem? Why isn't it good enough to say that everything
exists,
therefore we (i.e. people living in a lawful universe) must exist, and
therefore we shouldn't be surprised that we exist. If the Measure
Problem
is a problem, then why isn't there also an analogous Lottery Problem
for
people who have won the lottery?
I admit that this explanation of why there is no problem doesn't seem
satisfactory, but I also haven't been able to satisfactorily verbalize
what
is wrong with it.
Perhaps there can be a measure problem with the ASSA, or not. I have no
idea because I think the ASSA idea, before having a measure problem,
has a reference class problem. We don't know what is the set or class
on which the measure can bear. If we say observer, observer-moment,
observer-life etc... we have to define observer first, and each time
this is done, it looks like I should be a bacteria instead of a human,
or the measure cannot be well defined, or it presuppose a physical
world, etc. (see my old critics on ASSA, or on the Doomsday Argument.
Now, with the COMP (and thus the RSSA), things change.The reference
class is utterly well defined. For example, in the WM-duplication, it
is the set {W,M}. In front of the UD, the reference class, although it
is a non constructive object, it is, thanks to Church Thesis, a
perfectly well defined mathematical object: it is the set of all
states, going through your current state, generated by the DU. And the
measure problem is made equivalent with the white rabbits problem (due
to the existence of consistent but aberrant computations/histories (an
history, I recall, is a computation as viewed from a first person
perspective).
If you disagress with this, it means you stop somewhere in between the
first seven step of the 8-steps version of the UDA as in the slides
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004Slide.pdf
with explanations in
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHAL.htm
(html document), or
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHAL.pdf
(pdf document).
I would be interested to know where.
Of course, I could solve the problem by deciding that I'd rather be
self-destructive and evil than be inconsistent; then I could consider
adopting UD+ASSA as a philosophy. But I think I'll pass on that
option. :-)
I think our positions are pretty close on this issue, except that I do
prefer to substitute 'counter-intuitive'. :-) The problem is, how can
we be
so certain that our intuitions are correct?
An example
that Yudowsky gave: you might spend resources on constructing a unique
arrow pointing at yourself, in order to increase your measure by
making it easier for a search algorithm to find you.
While I no longer support UD+ASSA at this point (see my posts titled
against UD+ASSA), I'm not sure this particular example is especially
devastating. UD+ASSA perhaps implies an ethical theory in which all
else
being equal, you would prefer that there was a unique, easy to find
arrow
pointing at yourself. But it doesn't say that you should actually spend
resources constructing it, since those resources might be better used
in
other ways, and it's not clear how much one's measure would actually be
increased by such an arrow.
I am not sure who reads that arrow, or even what *is* that arrow.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
Rolf Nelson wrote: Your observations to date are consistent with all three models. What are the odds that you live in (2) but not (1) or (3)? Surely the answer is extremely high, but how do we justify it *mathematically* (and philosophically)? My current position is, forget the odds. Let's say there is no odds, likelihood, probability, degrees of confidence, what have you, that I live in (2) but not (1) or (3). Instead, I'll consider myself as living in all of (1), (2), and (3), and whenever I make any decisions, I will consider the consequences of my choices on all of these universes. But the end result is that I'll still act *as if* I only live in (2) because I simply do not care very much about the consequences of my actions in (1) and (3). I don't care about (1) and (3) because those universes are too arbitrary or random, and I can defend that by pointing to their high algorithmic complexities. So this example does not seem to support the notion that the Measure Problem needs to be solved. The Lottery Problem would be a problem if I kept winning the lottery every day; I'd think something was fishy, and search for an explanation besides blind chance, wouldn't you? If I kept winning the lottery every day, I would have the following thoughts: There are two types of universe where I've won the lottery every day, those where there's a reason I've won (e.g., it's rigged to always let one person win) and those where there's no reason (i.e. I won them fair and square). I am living in universes of both types, but I care much more about those of the first type because they have lower algorithmic complexities. Therefore I should act as if I'm living in the first type of universe and try to find out what the reason is that I've won. But what if I've won the lottery only once? I'd still be tempted to ask why did I win instead of someone else? But the above rationale for searching for an answer doesn't work, because there is no simpler universe where a reason for my winning exists. The Measure Problem seems more like this situation. In both cases, there is no apparent rationale for asking why, but we are tempted (or even compelled) to do so nevertheless. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
On Oct 25, 3:25 am, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Le 25-oct.-07, à 03:25, Wei Dai a écrit : Rolf Nelson wrote: An example that Yudowsky gave: you might spend resources on constructing a unique arrow pointing at yourself, in order to increase your measure by making it easier for a search algorithm to find you. While I no longer support UD+ASSA at this point (see my posts titled against UD+ASSA), I'm not sure this particular example is especially devastating. UD+ASSA perhaps implies an ethical theory in which all else being equal, you would prefer that there was a unique, easy to find arrow pointing at yourself. But it doesn't say that you should actually spend resources constructing it, since those resources might be better used in other ways, and it's not clear how much one's measure would actually be increased by such an arrow. I am not sure who reads that arrow, or even what *is* that arrow. Bruno How about SAI (Super Intelligence)? Or God? Seriously, of course. The problem with generic SAI is the one you brought up: how do you know the SAI is good? This problem does not exist with a good God. Also the problem of what is the arrow, how do you make it, does not exist with the Christian God, since the Christian God (and no other one) made the arrow himself. Tom --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
Le 21-oct.-07, à 20:33, Rolf Nelson a écrit : (Warning: This post assumes an familiarity with UD+ASSA and with the cosmological Measure Problem.) I am afraid you should say a little more on UD + ASSA. to make your points below clearer. I guess by UD you mean UDist (the universal distribution), but your remark remains a bit to fuzzy (at least for me) to comment. Of course I am not convinced by ASSA at the start, but still. The absence of recation of ASSA defenders is perhaps a symptom that you are not completely clear for them too? Bruno Observational Consequences: 1. Provides a possible explanation for the Measure Problem of why we shouldn't be extremely surprised to find we live in a lawful universe, rather than an extremely chaotic universe, or a homogeneous cloud of gas. 2. May help solve the Doomsday Argument in a finite universe, since you probably have at least a little more measure than a typical specific individual in the middle of a Galactic Empire, since you are easier to find with a small search algorithm than someone surrounded by enormous numbers of people. 3. For similar reasons, may help solve a variant of the Doomsday Argument where the universe is infinite. This variant DA asks, if there's currently a Galactic Empire 1 Hubble Volumes away with an immensely large number of people, why wasn't I born there instead of here? 4. May help solve the Simulation Argument, again because a search algorithm to find a particular simulation among all the adjacent computations in a Galactic Empire is longer (and therefore, by UD +ASSA, has less measure) than a search algorithm to find you. 5. In basic UD+ASSA (on a typical Turing Machine), there is a probably a strict linear ordering corresponding to when the events at each point in spacetime were calculated; I would argue that we should expect to see evidence of this in our observations if basic UD+ASSA is true. However, we do not see any total ordering in the physical Universe; quite the reverse: we see a homogeneous, isotropic Universe. This is evidence (but not proof) that either UD+ASSA is completely wrong, or that if UD+ASSA is true, then it's run on something other than a typical linear Turing Machine. (However, if you still want use a different machine to solve the Measure Problem, then feel free, but you first need to show that your non-Turing-machine variant still solves the Measure Problem.) Decision Theory Consequences (Including Moral Consequences): Every decision algorithm that I've ever seen is prey to paradoxes where the decision theory either crashes (fails to produce a decision), or requires an agent to do things that are bizarre, self- destructive, and evil. (If you like, substitute 'counter-intuitive' for 'bizarre, self-destructive, and evil.') For example: UD+ASSA, Accepting the Simulation Argument, Utilitarianism without discounting, and Utilitarianism with time and space discounting all have places where they seem to fail. UD+ASSA, like the Simulation Argument, has the following additional problem: while some forms of Utilitarianism may only fail in hypothetical future situations (by which point maybe we'll have come up with a better theory), UD+ASSA seems to fail *right here and now*. That is, UD+ASSA, like the Simulation Argument, seems to call on you to do bizarre, self-destructive, and evil things today. An example that Yudowsky gave: you might spend resources on constructing a unique arrow pointing at yourself, in order to increase your measure by making it easier for a search algorithm to find you. Of course, I could solve the problem by deciding that I'd rather be self-destructive and evil than be inconsistent; then I could consider adopting UD+ASSA as a philosophy. But I think I'll pass on that option. :-) So, more work would have to be done the morality of UD+ASSA before any variant of UD+ASSA can becomes a realistically palatable part of a moral philosophy. -Rolf http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
Rolf Nelson wrote: 1. Provides a possible explanation for the Measure Problem of why we shouldn't be extremely surprised to find we live in a lawful universe, rather than an extremely chaotic universe, or a homogeneous cloud of gas. One thing I still don't understand, is in what sense exactly is the Measure Problem a problem? Why isn't it good enough to say that everything exists, therefore we (i.e. people living in a lawful universe) must exist, and therefore we shouldn't be surprised that we exist. If the Measure Problem is a problem, then why isn't there also an analogous Lottery Problem for people who have won the lottery? I admit that this explanation of why there is no problem doesn't seem satisfactory, but I also haven't been able to satisfactorily verbalize what is wrong with it. Of course, I could solve the problem by deciding that I'd rather be self-destructive and evil than be inconsistent; then I could consider adopting UD+ASSA as a philosophy. But I think I'll pass on that option. :-) I think our positions are pretty close on this issue, except that I do prefer to substitute 'counter-intuitive'. :-) The problem is, how can we be so certain that our intuitions are correct? An example that Yudowsky gave: you might spend resources on constructing a unique arrow pointing at yourself, in order to increase your measure by making it easier for a search algorithm to find you. While I no longer support UD+ASSA at this point (see my posts titled against UD+ASSA), I'm not sure this particular example is especially devastating. UD+ASSA perhaps implies an ethical theory in which all else being equal, you would prefer that there was a unique, easy to find arrow pointing at yourself. But it doesn't say that you should actually spend resources constructing it, since those resources might be better used in other ways, and it's not clear how much one's measure would actually be increased by such an arrow. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: What are the consequences of UD+ASSA?
On Oct 24, 9:25 pm, Wei Dai [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Rolf Nelson wrote: 1. Provides a possible explanation for the Measure Problem of why we shouldn't be extremely surprised to find we live in a lawful universe, rather than an extremely chaotic universe, or a homogeneous cloud of gas. One thing I still don't understand, is in what sense exactly is the Measure Problem a problem? Why isn't it good enough to say that everything exists, therefore we (i.e. people living in a lawful universe) must exist, and therefore we shouldn't be surprised that we exist. If the Measure Problem is a problem, then why isn't there also an analogous Lottery Problem for people who have won the lottery? I don't have anything novel to say on the topic, but maybe if I restate the existing arguments, that'll help you expand on your counter-argument. The Lottery Problem would be a problem if I kept winning the lottery every day; I'd think something was fishy, and search for an explanation besides blind chance, wouldn't you? Let's rank some classes of people, from chaotic (many rules) to lawful (few rules): 1. An infinite number of people live in an infinite universe that obeys the Standard Model until November 1, 2007, and then adopts completely new laws of physics. If you live here, we predict that strange things will happen on November 1. 2. An infinite number of people live next-door in an infinite universe that obeys the Standard Model through all of 2007, and maybe beyond. If you live here, expect nothing strange. 3. An infinite number of people live across the street in a universe that looks like it obeys the Standard Model through November 1, 2007 because we are in the middle of a thermodynamic fluctuation, but the universe itself is extremely lawful, to the point where it's just a homogeneous gas with thermal fluctuations. We predict that strange things will happen on November 1. Your observations to date are consistent with all three models. What are the odds that you live in (2) but not (1) or (3)? Surely the answer is extremely high, but how do we justify it *mathematically* (and philosophically)? If we can find mathematical solutions to satisfy this Measure Problem, we can perhaps see what else that mathematical solution predicts, and test its predictions. Your UD+ASSA is the best solution I've seen so far, so I'm surprised there's not more interest in UD+ASSA (or some variant) as a proto-science. From the view of a potential scientific theory (rather than a philosophical formalization of induction), it's a *good* thing that it predicts no oracles exist, because that is a falsifiable (though weak) prediction. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
