My own interpretation of how UDT deals with anthropics (and I’m assuming ADT is similar) is “Don’t think about indexical probabilities or subjective anticipation. Just think about measures of things you (considered as an algorithm with certain inputs) have influence over.”
(Speculative paragraph, quite plausibly this is just nonsense.) Suppose you have copies A and B who are both offered the same bet on whether they’re A. One way you could make this decision is to assign measure to A and B, then figure out what the marginal utility of money is for each of A and B, then maximize measure-weighted utility. Another way you could make this decision, though, is just to say “the indexical probability I assign to ending up as each of A and B is proportional to their marginal utility of money” and then maximize your expected money. Intuitively this feels super weird and unjustified, but it does make the “prediction” that we’d find ourselves in a place with high marginal utility of money, as we currently do.
(Of course “money” is not crucial here, you could have the same bet with “time” or any other resource that can be compared across worlds.)
I would say that under UDASSA, it’s perhaps not super surprising to be when/where we are, because this seems likely to be a highly simulated time/scenario for a number of reasons (curiosity about ancestors, acausal games, getting philosophical ideas from other civilizations).
Fair point. By “acausal games” do you mean a generalization of acausal trade? (Acausal trade is the main reason I’d expect us to be simulated a lot.)
Intuitively this feels super weird and unjustified, but it does make the “prediction” that we’d find ourselves in a place with high marginal utility of money, as we currently do.
This is particularly weird because your indexical probability then depends on what kind of bet you’re offered. In other words, our marginal utility of money differs from our marginal utility of other things, and which one do you use to set your indexical probability? So this seems like a non-starter to me… (ETA: Maybe it changes moment by moment as we consider different decisions, or something like that? But what about when we’re just contemplating a philosophical problem and not trying to make any specific decisions?)
By “acausal games” do you mean a generalization of acausal trade?
Yes, didn’t want to just say “acausal trade” in case threats/war is also a big thing.
This is particularly weird because your indexical probability then depends on what kind of bet you’re offered. In other words, our marginal utility of money differs from our marginal utility of other things, and which one do you use to set your indexical probability? So this seems like a non-starter to me...
It seems pretty weird to me too, but to steelman: why shouldn’t it depend on the type of bet you’re offered? Your indexical probabilities can depend on any other type of observation you have when you open your eyes. E.g. maybe you see blue carpets, and you know that world A is 2x more likely to have blue carpets. And hearing someone say “and the bet is denominated in money not time” could maybe update you in an analogous way.
I mostly offer this in the spirit of “here’s the only way I can see to reconcile subjective anticipation with UDT at all”, not “here’s something which makes any sense mechanistically or which I can justify on intuitive grounds”.
I added this to my comment just before I saw your reply: Maybe it changes moment by moment as we consider different decisions, or something like that? But what about when we’re just contemplating a philosophical problem and not trying to make any specific decisions?
I mostly offer this in the spirit of “here’s the only way I can see to reconcile subjective anticipation with UDT at all”, not “here’s something which makes any sense mechanistically or which I can justify on intuitive grounds”.
Ah I see. I think this is incomplete even for that purpose, because “subjective anticipation” to me also includes “I currently see X, what should I expect to see in the future?” and not just “What should I expect to see, unconditionally?” (See the link earlier about UDASSA not dealing with subjective anticipation.)
ETA: Currently I’m basically thinking: use UDT for making decisions, use UDASSA for unconditional subjective anticipation, am confused about conditional subjective anticipation as well as how UDT and UDASSA are disconnected from each other (i.e., the subjective anticipation from UDASSA not feeding into decision making). Would love to improve upon this, but your idea currently feels worse than this...
(Speculative paragraph, quite plausibly this is just nonsense.) Suppose you have copies A and B who are both offered the same bet on whether they’re A. One way you could make this decision is to assign measure to A and B, then figure out what the marginal utility of money is for each of A and B, then maximize measure-weighted utility. Another way you could make this decision, though, is just to say “the indexical probability I assign to ending up as each of A and B is proportional to their marginal utility of money” and then maximize your expected money. Intuitively this feels super weird and unjustified, but it does make the “prediction” that we’d find ourselves in a place with high marginal utility of money, as we currently do.
(Of course “money” is not crucial here, you could have the same bet with “time” or any other resource that can be compared across worlds.)
Fair point. By “acausal games” do you mean a generalization of acausal trade? (Acausal trade is the main reason I’d expect us to be simulated a lot.)
This is particularly weird because your indexical probability then depends on what kind of bet you’re offered. In other words, our marginal utility of money differs from our marginal utility of other things, and which one do you use to set your indexical probability? So this seems like a non-starter to me… (ETA: Maybe it changes moment by moment as we consider different decisions, or something like that? But what about when we’re just contemplating a philosophical problem and not trying to make any specific decisions?)
Yes, didn’t want to just say “acausal trade” in case threats/war is also a big thing.
It seems pretty weird to me too, but to steelman: why shouldn’t it depend on the type of bet you’re offered? Your indexical probabilities can depend on any other type of observation you have when you open your eyes. E.g. maybe you see blue carpets, and you know that world A is 2x more likely to have blue carpets. And hearing someone say “and the bet is denominated in money not time” could maybe update you in an analogous way.
I mostly offer this in the spirit of “here’s the only way I can see to reconcile subjective anticipation with UDT at all”, not “here’s something which makes any sense mechanistically or which I can justify on intuitive grounds”.
I added this to my comment just before I saw your reply: Maybe it changes moment by moment as we consider different decisions, or something like that? But what about when we’re just contemplating a philosophical problem and not trying to make any specific decisions?
Ah I see. I think this is incomplete even for that purpose, because “subjective anticipation” to me also includes “I currently see X, what should I expect to see in the future?” and not just “What should I expect to see, unconditionally?” (See the link earlier about UDASSA not dealing with subjective anticipation.)
ETA: Currently I’m basically thinking: use UDT for making decisions, use UDASSA for unconditional subjective anticipation, am confused about conditional subjective anticipation as well as how UDT and UDASSA are disconnected from each other (i.e., the subjective anticipation from UDASSA not feeding into decision making). Would love to improve upon this, but your idea currently feels worse than this...