From: Robin Hanson (rhanson@gmu.edu)
Date: Sun Jun 01 2003 - 05:55:37 MDT
[Oddly enough, I seem to be able to post to Extropians even though I am not
allowed to subscribe. So cc me if you want to be sure I see something. RH]
Hal Finney wrote:
>While Robin says that they would agree "immediately", his result describes
>a process where the agents would exchange information about their beliefs,
>update their beliefs based on what they hear, and exchange information
>about the updated beliefs. They do come to agreement pretty soon, and the
>only information that has to be exchanged is the other person's opinion.
>I think that's what he means by "immediately". ...
>Another counter-intuitive aspect of this result is that the "path"
>to agreement is random. ...
Yes, what I meant by "immediately" is that each person cannot predict the
other person's next opinion relative to the opinion he just stated.
>Now, I think one reason is that this is the discussion which will occur
>if people are constrained to only describe their opinions. And in that
>case, there is a problem. While we can guarantee that people will come to
>agreement, there is no guarantee that the agreement is correct. ...
>So our conventional pattern, which is to exchange the reasons for our
>beliefs, is actually superior in terms of providing information useful
>for survival. Nevertheless, I suspect that upon an exchange like this,
>where each party says "I believe X for reason Y", it would be appropriate
>for the participants to adjust their beliefs along the lines above.
>They might continue to discuss and give their reasons, but their
>beliefs about which side is likely to be right should switch back and
>forth randomly. ...
The result of being unable to predict the other person's next opinion
is true regardless of what other information is also communicated at
each step. I think Hal understands this, but it might not be clear to
readers of the above.
Robin Hanson rhanson@gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu
Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Jun 01 2003 - 14:00:39 MDT