It also makes it behaviorally indistinguishable from an agent with complete preferences, as far as I can tell.
That’s not right. As I say in another comment:
And an agent abiding by the Caprice Rule can’t be represented as maximising utility, because its preferences are incomplete. In cases where the available trades aren’t arranged in some way that constitutes a money-pump, the agent can prefer (/reliably choose) A+ over A, and yet lack any preference between (/stochastically choose between) A+ and B, and lack any preference between (/stochastically choose between) A and B. Those patterns of preference/behaviour are allowed by the Caprice Rule.
Or consider another example. The agent trades A for B, then B for A, then declines to trade A for B+. That’s compatible with the Caprice rule, but not with complete preferences.
Or consider the pattern of behaviour that (I elsewhere argue) can make agents with incomplete preferences shutdownable. Agents abiding by the Caprice rule can refuse to pay costs to shift probability mass between A and B, and refuse to pay costs to shift probability mass between A and B+. Agents with complete preferences can’t do that.
The same updatelessness trick seems to apply to all money pump arguments.
[I’m going to use the phrase ‘resolute choice’ rather than ‘updatelessness.’ That seems like a more informative and less misleading description of the relevant phenomenon: making a plan and sticking to it. You can stick to a plan even if you update your beliefs. Also, in the posts on UDT, ‘updatelessness’ seems to refer to something importantly distinct from just making a plan and sticking to it.]
That’s right, but the drawbacks of resolute choice depend on the money pump to which you apply it. As Gustafsson notes, if an agent uses resolute choice to avoid the money pump for cyclic preferences, that agent has to choose against their strict preferences at some point. For example, they have to choose B at node 3 in the money pump below, even though—were they facing that choice ex nihilo—they’d prefer to choose A-.
There’s no such drawback for agents with incomplete preferences using resolute choice. As I note in this post, agents with incomplete preferences using resolute choice need never choose against their strict preferences. The agent’s past plan only has to serve as a tiebreaker: forcing a particular choice between options between which they’d otherwise lack a preference. For example, they have to choose B at node 2 in the money pump below. Were they facing that choice ex nihilo, they’d lack a preference between B and A-.
That’s not right. As I say in another comment:
Or consider another example. The agent trades A for B, then B for A, then declines to trade A for B+. That’s compatible with the Caprice rule, but not with complete preferences.
Or consider the pattern of behaviour that (I elsewhere argue) can make agents with incomplete preferences shutdownable. Agents abiding by the Caprice rule can refuse to pay costs to shift probability mass between A and B, and refuse to pay costs to shift probability mass between A and B+. Agents with complete preferences can’t do that.
[I’m going to use the phrase ‘resolute choice’ rather than ‘updatelessness.’ That seems like a more informative and less misleading description of the relevant phenomenon: making a plan and sticking to it. You can stick to a plan even if you update your beliefs. Also, in the posts on UDT, ‘updatelessness’ seems to refer to something importantly distinct from just making a plan and sticking to it.]
That’s right, but the drawbacks of resolute choice depend on the money pump to which you apply it. As Gustafsson notes, if an agent uses resolute choice to avoid the money pump for cyclic preferences, that agent has to choose against their strict preferences at some point. For example, they have to choose B at node 3 in the money pump below, even though—were they facing that choice ex nihilo—they’d prefer to choose A-.
There’s no such drawback for agents with incomplete preferences using resolute choice. As I note in this post, agents with incomplete preferences using resolute choice need never choose against their strict preferences. The agent’s past plan only has to serve as a tiebreaker: forcing a particular choice between options between which they’d otherwise lack a preference. For example, they have to choose B at node 2 in the money pump below. Were they facing that choice ex nihilo, they’d lack a preference between B and A-.