The analogy with relativity had occurred to me. But we could use another analogy from high-energy physics: There are a very large number of theories which have the standard model (the empirically validated part of particle physics) as their low-energy limit. We can’t just rely on high-energy thought-experiments to figure out the actual high-energy physics. We need to do some real experiments where we start low, ramp up the energy, and see what happens.
We can’t just rely on high-energy thought-experiments to figure out the actual high-energy physics.
Right. We can only use it to rule out incoherent or otherwise “clearly wrong” high-energy physics. But in this analogy, we’ve shown that CDT seems to not be optimal in this extreme case. if we can define a DT that does better than CDT in this case, and no worse in normal cases, we should use it. I don’t think TDT has been well enough defined yet to subject to all conceivable tests, but anything that is following the same kinds of principals will reproduce CDT in most cases, and do better in this case.
We need to do some real experiment where we start low, ramp up the energy, and see what happens.
Here’s where the analogy falls down—we only need to start low and ramp up the energy because of the difficulties of doing high-energy experiments. (And theory-wise, we extrapolate down from clear differences between theories at high energies to find signatures of small differences at lower energies.) If the extreme energies are accessible (and not crazily dangerous), we can just go ahead and test in that regime. Game theory is math. In math, unlike physics, there is no difference between thought experiments and real experiments. The question of applicability in everyday life is an applied economics / sociology / psychology one. How close are people or situations that appear to be screwy in this omega-like way to actually being that way?
The analogy with relativity had occurred to me. But we could use another analogy from high-energy physics: There are a very large number of theories which have the standard model (the empirically validated part of particle physics) as their low-energy limit. We can’t just rely on high-energy thought-experiments to figure out the actual high-energy physics. We need to do some real experiments where we start low, ramp up the energy, and see what happens.
Right. We can only use it to rule out incoherent or otherwise “clearly wrong” high-energy physics. But in this analogy, we’ve shown that CDT seems to not be optimal in this extreme case. if we can define a DT that does better than CDT in this case, and no worse in normal cases, we should use it. I don’t think TDT has been well enough defined yet to subject to all conceivable tests, but anything that is following the same kinds of principals will reproduce CDT in most cases, and do better in this case.
Here’s where the analogy falls down—we only need to start low and ramp up the energy because of the difficulties of doing high-energy experiments. (And theory-wise, we extrapolate down from clear differences between theories at high energies to find signatures of small differences at lower energies.) If the extreme energies are accessible (and not crazily dangerous), we can just go ahead and test in that regime. Game theory is math. In math, unlike physics, there is no difference between thought experiments and real experiments. The question of applicability in everyday life is an applied economics / sociology / psychology one. How close are people or situations that appear to be screwy in this omega-like way to actually being that way?