The presence of a pre-order doesn’t inherently imply a composition of subagents with ordered preferences. An agent can have a pre-order of preferences due to reasons such as lack of information, indifference between choices, or bounds on computation—this does not necessitate the presence of subagents.
If we do not use a model based on composition of subagents with ordered preferences, in the case of “Atticus the Agent” it can be consistent to switch B → A + 1$ and A → B + 1$.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding the claim being made here though.
I think the model of “a composition of subagents with total orders on their preferences” is a descriptive model of inexploitable incomplete preferences, and not a mechanistic model. At least, that was how I interpreted “Why Subagents?”.
I read @johnswentworth as making the claim that such preferences could be modelled as a vetocracy of VNM rational agents, not as claiming that humans (or other objects of study) are mechanistically composed of discrete parts that are themselves VNM rational.
I’d be more interested/excited by a refutation on the grounds of: “incomplete inexploitable preferences are not necessarily adequately modelled as a vetocracy of parts with complete preferences”. VNM rationality and expected utility maximisation is mostly used as a descriptive rather than mechanistic tool anyway.
The presence of a pre-order doesn’t inherently imply a composition of subagents with ordered preferences. An agent can have a pre-order of preferences due to reasons such as lack of information, indifference between choices, or bounds on computation—this does not necessitate the presence of subagents.
If we do not use a model based on composition of subagents with ordered preferences, in the case of “Atticus the Agent” it can be consistent to switch B → A + 1$ and A → B + 1$.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding the claim being made here though.
I think the model of “a composition of subagents with total orders on their preferences” is a descriptive model of inexploitable incomplete preferences, and not a mechanistic model. At least, that was how I interpreted “Why Subagents?”.
I read @johnswentworth as making the claim that such preferences could be modelled as a vetocracy of VNM rational agents, not as claiming that humans (or other objects of study) are mechanistically composed of discrete parts that are themselves VNM rational.
I’d be more interested/excited by a refutation on the grounds of: “incomplete inexploitable preferences are not necessarily adequately modelled as a vetocracy of parts with complete preferences”. VNM rationality and expected utility maximisation is mostly used as a descriptive rather than mechanistic tool anyway.
I think you have misunderstood. In particular, you can still model agents that are incomplete because of e.g. bounded compute as vetocracies.
Oh I agree you can model any incomplete agents as vetocracies.
I am just pointing out that the argument:
You can model X using Y
Y implies Z
Does not imply:
Therefore Z for all X