You are not alone. There’s never been a meta level proof that you can apply the same decision theory to any possible universe. But most lesswrongians want to fiddle with the details, and not look at the big picture.
I don’t follow—what part of switching out your universe should stop decision theory from working? If you care about some universe, you can be the kind of person such that if you are that kind of person then that universe gets better. You can execute this motion from anywhere, though if the universe you care about has nothing depend on what kind of person you are it won’t help.
If you care about some universe, you can be the kind of person such that if you are that kind of person then that universe gets better.
Decision theory is not some vague claim about being a certain kind of person.
Universes can stymie DT’s by having no possibility of what you want, having infinite amounts of it, having infinite copies of you, disallowing causal connections between decisions and results , etc, etc.
If there is no possibility of what you want we can do no better than whatever approach I propose. The remote possibility of controlling infinite matter does indeed dominate all other concerns for any unbounded utility function, so I observe our utility function to be bounded. Having infinite copies of me is fine if me being a particular kind of person implies the copies of me being the same kind of person. Causal connections are not required—if someone knows what kind of person you are even without building a copy of you, that is enough for my “such that” clause.
You are not alone. There’s never been a meta level proof that you can apply the same decision theory to any possible universe. But most lesswrongians want to fiddle with the details, and not look at the big picture.
I don’t follow—what part of switching out your universe should stop decision theory from working? If you care about some universe, you can be the kind of person such that if you are that kind of person then that universe gets better. You can execute this motion from anywhere, though if the universe you care about has nothing depend on what kind of person you are it won’t help.
Decision theory is not some vague claim about being a certain kind of person.
Universes can stymie DT’s by having no possibility of what you want, having infinite amounts of it, having infinite copies of you, disallowing causal connections between decisions and results , etc, etc.
If there is no possibility of what you want we can do no better than whatever approach I propose. The remote possibility of controlling infinite matter does indeed dominate all other concerns for any unbounded utility function, so I observe our utility function to be bounded. Having infinite copies of me is fine if me being a particular kind of person implies the copies of me being the same kind of person. Causal connections are not required—if someone knows what kind of person you are even without building a copy of you, that is enough for my “such that” clause.