Assuming that you are typical may turn out to be as bad as assuming you are special. Any “assuming” is approximation, and depending on the problem the approximation may be either adequate or infinitely disastrous. That’s what happens with doomsday argument, for example.
The values of probabilities of specific situations don’t particularly matter if you don’t approximate. The preference is for actions (i.e. areas in state space) with highest average utility (according to probability measure), independently of the probability measure of those areas as whole.
That is, if you have a huge event, something that can be predicted to happen very likely, with a certain average utility (weighted by probability), and a tiny event with significantly higher average utility, the tiny event is preferred. Ignoring the tiny event because of its tiny probability measure leads to losing that opportunity.
I agree, but you still need evidence for the tiny event you are ignoring. Acting on the assumption that you are special/in a unique situation without any justification other than a blind guess and a worry that you are neglecting the opportunity is dangerous. It’s the mediocrity principle: When we tend to assume something amazing about ourselves, like that the Earth is the center of the universe, we end up finding out otherwise.
Contrast with the anthropic principle, in that we know we must account for the universe being capable of supporting at least one type of intelligent life. The number of ways that could go wrong are already gigantic, so we’ve already hit the jackpot at once. How many times in a row do we win the lottery?
I see what you mean with the tiny event with high utility, but I mean compare:
1) Driving or walking slightly out of your way for 1 extra minute a day to check if a certain apartment building has opened up a unit you are looking to rent (Low chance, but no reason to squander the opportunity for small cost.)
2) Picking up every piece of paper you see, on the chance that some number of the pieces of paper could be lottery tickets and some number of those tickets could be winning ones. (Extremely high utility, extremely low chance, and most importantly, you don’t have any reason to assume or guess somebody is around discarding used lottery tickets: You just know that it is possible.)
The chances described here are above and beyond the second. The top 10^-30% is a truly minuscule set out of the whole. (If still a Vast upon imagining set because we are dealing with Everett branches...) If we are in a particularly special branch, how do we take advantage of that? What useful information does that give us? At worst it will mislead our understanding of the universe and at best it is barely noticeable.
Assuming that you are typical may turn out to be as bad as assuming you are special. Any “assuming” is approximation, and depending on the problem the approximation may be either adequate or infinitely disastrous. That’s what happens with doomsday argument, for example.
The values of probabilities of specific situations don’t particularly matter if you don’t approximate. The preference is for actions (i.e. areas in state space) with highest average utility (according to probability measure), independently of the probability measure of those areas as whole.
That is, if you have a huge event, something that can be predicted to happen very likely, with a certain average utility (weighted by probability), and a tiny event with significantly higher average utility, the tiny event is preferred. Ignoring the tiny event because of its tiny probability measure leads to losing that opportunity.
I agree, but you still need evidence for the tiny event you are ignoring. Acting on the assumption that you are special/in a unique situation without any justification other than a blind guess and a worry that you are neglecting the opportunity is dangerous. It’s the mediocrity principle: When we tend to assume something amazing about ourselves, like that the Earth is the center of the universe, we end up finding out otherwise.
Contrast with the anthropic principle, in that we know we must account for the universe being capable of supporting at least one type of intelligent life. The number of ways that could go wrong are already gigantic, so we’ve already hit the jackpot at once. How many times in a row do we win the lottery?
I see what you mean with the tiny event with high utility, but I mean compare:
1) Driving or walking slightly out of your way for 1 extra minute a day to check if a certain apartment building has opened up a unit you are looking to rent (Low chance, but no reason to squander the opportunity for small cost.)
2) Picking up every piece of paper you see, on the chance that some number of the pieces of paper could be lottery tickets and some number of those tickets could be winning ones. (Extremely high utility, extremely low chance, and most importantly, you don’t have any reason to assume or guess somebody is around discarding used lottery tickets: You just know that it is possible.)
The chances described here are above and beyond the second. The top 10^-30% is a truly minuscule set out of the whole. (If still a Vast upon imagining set because we are dealing with Everett branches...) If we are in a particularly special branch, how do we take advantage of that? What useful information does that give us? At worst it will mislead our understanding of the universe and at best it is barely noticeable.