I had a conversation with another person regarding this Leslie’s firing squad type stuff. Basically, I came up with a cavemen analogy with the cavemen facing lethal threats. It’s pretty clear—from the outside—that the cavemen which do probability correctly and don’t do anthropic reasoning with regards to tigers in the field, will do better at mapping lethal dangers in their environment.
You’re welcome. So what’s your actual take on the issue? I never seen a coherent explanation why bombs must make a difference. I seen appeals to “but you wouldn’t be thinking anything if it was red”, which ought to perfectly cancel out if you apply that to the urn choice as well.
edit: i.e. this anthropics, to me, is sort of like how you could calculate the forces in a mechanical system, but make an error somewhere, and that yields an apparent perpetuum mobile, as forces on your wheel with water and magnets fail to cancel out. Likewise, you evaluate impacts of some irrelevant information, and you make an error somewhere, and irrelevant information makes a difference.
To a first approximation I don’t think it makes a difference, but it does add some logical uncertainty. Also, intuitively I want to be able to use anthropic reasoning to say “there is only a tiny chance that the universe would have condition X, but I’m not surprised by X because without X observers such as us won’t exist”, but I think doing this implies I have to give a different estimate if red = bomb.
Also, intuitively I want to be able to use anthropic reasoning to say “there is only a tiny chance that the universe would have condition X, but I’m not surprised by X because without X observers such as us won’t exist”
Hmm, that’s an interesting angle on the issue, I didn’t quite realize that was the motivation here.
I would be surprised by our existence if that was the case, and not further surprised by observation of X (because I already observed X by the way of perceiving my existence).
Let’s say I remember that there was an strange, surprising sign painted on the wall, and I go by the wall, and I see that sign, and I am surprised that there’s that sign on the wall at all, but I am not surprised that I am seeing it (because I can perform an operation in my head that implies existence of the sign—my memory tells me I seen it before). Same with the existence, I am surprised we exist at all but I am not surprised when I observe something necessary for my existence because I could’ve derived it from prior observations.
I think this particular example doesn’t really exemplify what I think you’re trying to demonstrate here.
A simpler example would be:
You draw one ball our of a jar containing 99% red balls and 1% silver balls (randomly mixed).
The ball is silver. Is this surprising? Yes.
What if you instead draw a ball in a dark room so you can’t see the color of the ball (same probability distribution). After drawing the ball, you are informed that the red balls contain a high explosive, and if you draw a red ball from the jar it would instantly explode, killing you.
The lights go on. You see that you’re holding a silver ball. Does this surprise you?
Well, being alive would surprise me, but not the colour of the ball. Essentially what happens is that the internal senses (e.g. perceiving own internal monologue) end up sensing the ball colour (by the way of the high explosive).
I had a conversation with another person regarding this Leslie’s firing squad type stuff. Basically, I came up with a cavemen analogy with the cavemen facing lethal threats. It’s pretty clear—from the outside—that the cavemen which do probability correctly and don’t do anthropic reasoning with regards to tigers in the field, will do better at mapping lethal dangers in their environment.
Thanks for letting me know about “Leslie’s firing squad[s]”
You’re welcome. So what’s your actual take on the issue? I never seen a coherent explanation why bombs must make a difference. I seen appeals to “but you wouldn’t be thinking anything if it was red”, which ought to perfectly cancel out if you apply that to the urn choice as well.
edit: i.e. this anthropics, to me, is sort of like how you could calculate the forces in a mechanical system, but make an error somewhere, and that yields an apparent perpetuum mobile, as forces on your wheel with water and magnets fail to cancel out. Likewise, you evaluate impacts of some irrelevant information, and you make an error somewhere, and irrelevant information makes a difference.
To a first approximation I don’t think it makes a difference, but it does add some logical uncertainty. Also, intuitively I want to be able to use anthropic reasoning to say “there is only a tiny chance that the universe would have condition X, but I’m not surprised by X because without X observers such as us won’t exist”, but I think doing this implies I have to give a different estimate if red = bomb.
Hmm, that’s an interesting angle on the issue, I didn’t quite realize that was the motivation here.
I would be surprised by our existence if that was the case, and not further surprised by observation of X (because I already observed X by the way of perceiving my existence).
Let’s say I remember that there was an strange, surprising sign painted on the wall, and I go by the wall, and I see that sign, and I am surprised that there’s that sign on the wall at all, but I am not surprised that I am seeing it (because I can perform an operation in my head that implies existence of the sign—my memory tells me I seen it before). Same with the existence, I am surprised we exist at all but I am not surprised when I observe something necessary for my existence because I could’ve derived it from prior observations.
I think this particular example doesn’t really exemplify what I think you’re trying to demonstrate here.
A simpler example would be:
You draw one ball our of a jar containing 99% red balls and 1% silver balls (randomly mixed).
The ball is silver. Is this surprising? Yes.
What if you instead draw a ball in a dark room so you can’t see the color of the ball (same probability distribution). After drawing the ball, you are informed that the red balls contain a high explosive, and if you draw a red ball from the jar it would instantly explode, killing you.
The lights go on. You see that you’re holding a silver ball. Does this surprise you?
Well, being alive would surprise me, but not the colour of the ball. Essentially what happens is that the internal senses (e.g. perceiving own internal monologue) end up sensing the ball colour (by the way of the high explosive).