RE: Status of Superrationality

From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Thu May 29 2003 - 16:13:55 MDT

  • Next message: Wei Dai: "Re: Status of Superrationality"

    Eliezer wrote:
    > Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
    >>
    >> ### Certainly a quite complex article. I think that what you quoted
    >> above means that the Bayesian would treat the output of another
    >> Bayesian as data of the same validity as the output of his own
    >> reasoning. If you know that a fellow Bayesian sincerely believes in
    >> flying saucers, you have to believe in them, too, unless your priors
    >> are wildly divergent ("having a memory of seeing a flying saucer as
    >> clear as my memory of seeing my car is sufficient to profess belief
    >> in flying saucers" vs. "no amount of subjective visual experience is
    >> sufficient to profess belief in flying saucers"). If the honest
    >> Bayesian says he saw a flying saucer, you have to believe him, or
    >> else assume he is not Bayesian at all, or has a higher
    >> visual/cortical malfunction rate than you (i.e. is less Bayesian
    >> than you). Barring these doubts, you would become as convinced about
    >> the existence of flying saucers as the person who actually saw them,
    >> despite not having the direct sensory input that he had. In effect,
    >> his beliefs are as valid an input for your future reasoning as your
    >> own sensory and logical subsystem outputs.
    >
    > Bear in mind that one should distinguish between *real*, *genuine*
    > Bayesians like AIXI, and mere Bayesian wannabes like every physically
    > realized being in our Universe.
    >
    > Bear in mind also that the above result holds only if you believe with
    > absolute certainty (itself a very non-Bayesian thing) that the
    > Bayesian's reasoning processes are perfect.

    ### But why? If I believe with some reasonable certainty that the other
    Bayesian is a perfect as myself, and then some more (to account for my lack
    of absolute certainty that he is what I think he is), then I should still
    assign the same level of trustworthiness to his beliefs as to mine.

    -----------------------
    >
    > And finally, bear in mind that, given the above assumptions, we would
    > not actually be confronted with a Bayesian saying he believed in
    > flying saucers!

    ### But I've seen many!!

    Mom made me sweep the shards, too, so I remember well.

    Rafal



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