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ControlsFreak


				

				

				

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ControlsFreak


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

					5 followers  

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					joined 2022 October 02 23:23:48 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Recursive thinking, Newcomb's problem, and free will
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Ok, so I'm trying to follow. The clock we're analyzing has all of the access it needs in order to do y', which is what it's going to do, and which we've observed is suboptimal. But then, I guess, we're like, hypothesizing that we could conjure up some faster-than-light travel for something, waves hands, to this clock. And that, somehow, waves hands, I guess if we, like, change the design of the clock or something, which we can't do, somehow, waves hands, could end up in it doing action y instead of y'.


Like, what is the problem here? What is the space of possible actions? What am I trying to solve for?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Recursive thinking, Newcomb's problem, and free will
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


you don't have access




I don't follow. Every part of you that is necessary to follow the clockwork has appropriate access to the mechanisms of the clock, at least to the extent that is necessary for it to be able to follow the clockwork. If there were some part of you that didn't have such access, then it wouldn't be able to follow the clockwork, and we would reach a contradiction.


Like, maybe try to explain how this works directly on the example of analyzing an actual clock, with determined suboptimal action y' and a hypothesized optimal action y. What doesn't have access to what?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Baby Don't Fear the Reaper
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think I have now concluded my argument that there is no contradiction, once one tries to explain how the contradiction is supposed to work.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Baby Don't Fear the Reaper
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't see a contradiction at all. This proposed unmoved mover is already clearly an exception to the general rule of requiring a prior mover, apparently preferring avoiding infinite regress over having an exception. It is simply not moved by some prior cause. That's kind of it? I think you'll have to be more explicit about how you find a contradiction.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Baby Don't Fear the Reaper
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What's confusing is that I'm missing an argument. Some sort of, "Here are some premises, and here's a conclusion," sort of thing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Baby Don't Fear the Reaper
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm not quite seeing an argument yet. Go on?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Recursive thinking, Newcomb's problem, and free will
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I mean, kinda no? That's where the Wolpert/Benford critique comes in. You can't formalize the problem in terms of game theory without adding additional assumptions. If your additional assumptions to formalize it are, "It's actually a clock, and there's no feasible action set with cardinality greater than one," then sure, you have a suitable formalization... but it's kinda not game theory. If you want to back away from that being your additional assumption, it's kinda still on you to state other formal additional assumptions that make it a well-posed game.


EDIT: Perhaps another way of describing it would be as follows. Suppose one is just analyzing a clock. We'll discretize time for now just to make it simple. Say that we observe from our analysis that in the transition from time t_1 to t_2, the clock will become one second slow compared to some 'objective' time (handwave any difficulties here). We could observe that this is, in some sense, suboptimal, sure.


Now, does it make sense to say something like, "What if we just call this suboptimal action y' and hypothesize an alternative action y that doesn't result in being one second slow?" Would it make sense to say that we have constructed a decision theory problem? Note that we're not specifying anything about any sort of real policy space or anything; it's not like we're saying, "Here is the policy space of possible mechanisms that a non-clock can choose from to design the clock."1 We just have a clock.


Suppose we say that there is some being, Omega, who will accurately predict that said clock will take action y' and become one second slow, and then put some quantity of money in front of the clock. Suppose we say, "Well, imagine the clock took hypothetical action y, which it can't do, then imagine that Omega would put a different quantity of money in front of the clock in that case." Does this become a game theory problem? If so, what am I supposed to solve for? What is the space of possible solutions?


1 - This is perhaps related to my comment about what Yud did to the prisoner's dilemma problem. He created some different policy space about source codes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Baby Don't Fear the Reaper
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think this is non-responsive to my comment. Isn't god himself a "mover" in classical theology?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Baby Don't Fear the Reaper
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Jesus moves and changes yet he's the god that is not supposed to do either of those things




I already don't really follow. I thought the second word of "unmoved mover" was "mover". I didn't think classical theology posited an unmoved unmover.