Sleeping Beauty with cookies is an almost-realistic situation. I could easily create an analogous situation that is fully realistic (e.g., by modifying my Sailor’s Child problem). Beauty will decide somehow whether or not to eat a cookie. If Beauty has no rational basis for making her decision, then I think she has no rational basis for making any decision. Denial of the existence of rationality is of course a possible position to take, but it’s a position that by its nature is one that it is not profitable to try to discuss rationally.
Beauty can make a rational decision if she changes the objective. Instead of the first-person apparent “I” if she try to maximize the utility of a person distinguishable by a third-person then a rational decision can be made. The problem is that in almost all anthropic school of thought the first-person center is used without discrimination. E.g. in sleeping beauty problem the new evidence is I’m awake “today”. In Doomsday argument it considers “my” birth rank. In SIA’s rebuttal to Doomsday Argument the evidence supporting more observers is that “I” exist. In such logics it doesn’t matter when you read the argument the “I” in your mind is a different physical person from the “I” in my mind when I read the same argument. Since the “I” or “Now” is defined by first-person center in their logic it should be used the same way in the decision making as well. The fact a rational decision cannot be made while using the self-apparent “I” only shows there is a problem with the objective. That using the self-apparent concept of “I” or “Now” indiscriminately in anthropic reasoning is wrong.
Actually in this regard my idea is quite similar to your FNC. Of course there are obvious differences. But I think a discussion of that deserves another thread.
I got a feeling that our discussion here is coming to an end. While we didn’t convince each other, as expected for any anthropic related discussion, I still feel I have gained something out of it. It forced me to try to think and express more clearly and better structure my argument. I also want to think I have a better understanding of potential counter arguments. For that I want to express my gratitude
Sleeping Beauty with cookies is an almost-realistic situation. I could easily create an analogous situation that is fully realistic (e.g., by modifying my Sailor’s Child problem). Beauty will decide somehow whether or not to eat a cookie. If Beauty has no rational basis for making her decision, then I think she has no rational basis for making any decision. Denial of the existence of rationality is of course a possible position to take, but it’s a position that by its nature is one that it is not profitable to try to discuss rationally.
Beauty can make a rational decision if she changes the objective. Instead of the first-person apparent “I” if she try to maximize the utility of a person distinguishable by a third-person then a rational decision can be made. The problem is that in almost all anthropic school of thought the first-person center is used without discrimination. E.g. in sleeping beauty problem the new evidence is I’m awake “today”. In Doomsday argument it considers “my” birth rank. In SIA’s rebuttal to Doomsday Argument the evidence supporting more observers is that “I” exist. In such logics it doesn’t matter when you read the argument the “I” in your mind is a different physical person from the “I” in my mind when I read the same argument. Since the “I” or “Now” is defined by first-person center in their logic it should be used the same way in the decision making as well. The fact a rational decision cannot be made while using the self-apparent “I” only shows there is a problem with the objective. That using the self-apparent concept of “I” or “Now” indiscriminately in anthropic reasoning is wrong.
Actually in this regard my idea is quite similar to your FNC. Of course there are obvious differences. But I think a discussion of that deserves another thread.
I got a feeling that our discussion here is coming to an end. While we didn’t convince each other, as expected for any anthropic related discussion, I still feel I have gained something out of it. It forced me to try to think and express more clearly and better structure my argument. I also want to think I have a better understanding of potential counter arguments. For that I want to express my gratitude