From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Sat May 31 2003 - 18:03:12 MDT
Hal Finney wrote:
>
> This is not at all what Robin's paper predicts! Instead, for a typical
> dispute, say one with just two possible positions, each participant has
> a 50-50 chance of changing his mind on every round. Here is a typical
> dialog among rational disagreers:
>
> AMY BOB
>
> I don't think capital punishment I believe capital punishment
> reduces crime. does reduce crime.
>
>
> Oh, really? Then I now think that You don't say! In that case I
> capital punishment does reduce now believe that capital punishment
> crime. does not reduce crime.
>
>
> Well! Therefore I have now gone back Oh? Then I now believe again that
> to my original position, that capital capital punishment does reduce
> punishment does not reduce crime. crime.
I can personally attest that, in practice, this is not how meta-rational
Bayesian wannabes actually argue.
On our way back from Extro 5, Nick Bostrom and I shared a taxicab to the
airport. We each contributed half the fare, but on counting the collected
money prior to paying, it became clear that there was an extra $20 bill
which one of us had put in by accident. I didn't think it was me, and
Nick Bostrom didn't think it was him.
First, we paid the taxi driver and got out of cab and into the airport.
Then we turned our minds to the matter of the $20 bill. Both of us, after
counting the money remaining in our wallets, noticed no obvious
discrepancy. And both of us found it implausible that the bill could have
come from his own wallet.
Now most people would have argued with each other, trying to demonstrate
superior politeness and altruism, until one person agreed to accept the
bill, and the other walked off slightly higher in tribal status. Or
perhaps, after some rounds of the exchange, both would have agreed to
donate the $20 bill to charity.
But Nick Bostrom and I each knew the other to be meta-rational, so the
following exchange took place:
Eliezer Yudkowsky: "What's your estimated probability that the $20 bill
is yours?"
Nick Bostrom: "Fifteen percent."
Eliezer Yudkowsky: "Mine is twenty percent."
(Calculator referred to.)
Eliezer Yudkowsky: "I'll keep the twenty. Here's eight dollars and
fifty-seven cents."
And that's how it works.
-- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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