Yes. I agree that CDT fails to achieve optimal results in circumstances where the program that you are running directly affects the outside universe. For example, in clone PD, where running a program causes the opponent to run the same program, or in Newcomb’s problem, where running a program that 2-boxes causes the second box to be empty. On the other hand, ANY decision theory can be made to fail in such circumstances. You could merely face a universe that determines whether you are running program X and charges you $100 if you are.
Are there circumstances where the universe does not read your mind where CDT fails?
Are there circumstances where the universe does not read your mind where CDT fails?
I’m sure we could think of some, but I want to address the question of “universe reads your mind”. Social agents (ie: real, live people) reason about each-other’s minds all the time. There is absolutely nothing weird or unusual about this, and there really oughtn’t be anything weird about trying to formalize how it ought be done.
Correlation-by-congruent-logic can show up in situations that don’t necessarily have to do with minds, particularly the agent’s mind, but the agent needs to either have an epistemology capable of noticing the correlations and equating them logically within its decision-making procedure—TDT reaches in that direction.
Sorry. I’m not quite sure what you’re saying here. Though, I did ask for a specific example, which I am pretty sure is not contained here.
Though to clarify, by “reading your mind” I refer to any situation in which the scenario you face (including the given description of that scenario) depends directly on which program you are running and not merely upon what that program outputs.
There’s a difference between reasoning about your mind and actually reading your mind. CDT certainly faces situations in which it is advantageous to convince others that it does not follow CDT. On the other hand, this is simply behaving in a way that leads to the desired outcome. This is different from facing situations where you can only convince people of this by actually self-modifying. Those situations only occur when other people can actually read your mind.
I suppose. On the other hand, is that because other people can read your mind or because you have emotional responses that you cannot suppress and are correlated to what you are thinking? This is actually critical to what counterfactuals you want to construct.
Consider for example the terrorist who would try to bring down an airplane that he is on given the opportunity. Unfortunately, he’s an open book and airport security would figure out that he’s up to something and prevent him from flying. This is actually inconvenient since it also means he can’t use air travel. He would like to be able to precommit to not trying to take down particular flights so that he would be allowed on. On the other hand, whether or not this would work depends on what exactly airport security is picking up on. Are they actually able to discern his intent to cause harm, or are they merely picking up on his nervousness at being questioned by airport security. If it’s the latter, would an internal precommitment to not bring down a particular flight actually solve his problem?
Put another way, is the TSA detecting the fact that the terrorist would down the plane if given the opportunity, or simply that he would like to do so (in the sense of getting extra utils from doing so).
Yes. I agree that CDT fails to achieve optimal results in circumstances where the program that you are running directly affects the outside universe. For example, in clone PD, where running a program causes the opponent to run the same program, or in Newcomb’s problem, where running a program that 2-boxes causes the second box to be empty. On the other hand, ANY decision theory can be made to fail in such circumstances. You could merely face a universe that determines whether you are running program X and charges you $100 if you are.
Are there circumstances where the universe does not read your mind where CDT fails?
I’m sure we could think of some, but I want to address the question of “universe reads your mind”. Social agents (ie: real, live people) reason about each-other’s minds all the time. There is absolutely nothing weird or unusual about this, and there really oughtn’t be anything weird about trying to formalize how it ought be done.
OK. Name one.
Correlation-by-congruent-logic can show up in situations that don’t necessarily have to do with minds, particularly the agent’s mind, but the agent needs to either have an epistemology capable of noticing the correlations and equating them logically within its decision-making procedure—TDT reaches in that direction.
Sorry. I’m not quite sure what you’re saying here. Though, I did ask for a specific example, which I am pretty sure is not contained here.
Though to clarify, by “reading your mind” I refer to any situation in which the scenario you face (including the given description of that scenario) depends directly on which program you are running and not merely upon what that program outputs.
There’s a difference between reasoning about your mind and actually reading your mind. CDT certainly faces situations in which it is advantageous to convince others that it does not follow CDT. On the other hand, this is simply behaving in a way that leads to the desired outcome. This is different from facing situations where you can only convince people of this by actually self-modifying. Those situations only occur when other people can actually read your mind.
Humans are not perfect deceivers.
I suppose. On the other hand, is that because other people can read your mind or because you have emotional responses that you cannot suppress and are correlated to what you are thinking? This is actually critical to what counterfactuals you want to construct.
Consider for example the terrorist who would try to bring down an airplane that he is on given the opportunity. Unfortunately, he’s an open book and airport security would figure out that he’s up to something and prevent him from flying. This is actually inconvenient since it also means he can’t use air travel. He would like to be able to precommit to not trying to take down particular flights so that he would be allowed on. On the other hand, whether or not this would work depends on what exactly airport security is picking up on. Are they actually able to discern his intent to cause harm, or are they merely picking up on his nervousness at being questioned by airport security. If it’s the latter, would an internal precommitment to not bring down a particular flight actually solve his problem?
Put another way, is the TSA detecting the fact that the terrorist would down the plane if given the opportunity, or simply that he would like to do so (in the sense of getting extra utils from doing so).