If you find yourself deciding contrary to UDT you may infer that either
your designer was stupider or crazier than you, or
your designer was smarter or less crazy than you.
In the first case, your designer failed to realize something that you would have realized, had you been in your designer’s place. In the second case, your designer knew something that you would not have known in your designer’s place.
For example, if you find yourself turning down Omega in Pascal’s Mugging [ETA: I meant the Counterfactual Mugging], you may infer that either
your designer failed to design you in a way that you would have expected would maximize your utility, or
your designer somehow predicted, with sufficient confidence, how Omega’s coin would land, and so designed you to do what is best in that case.
Of course, as a present-day human, you already knew that (1) is the case, not (2). You were designed by a stupid process of natural selection. You already knew that your designer didn’t take into account the possibility of being confronted by something like Omega. It’s true that other humans contributed some modest amount to your design, through education and the art of rationality. However, even these additions were made by people who were, for the most part, crazier or stupider than you are now.
So, finding that you are declining Omega, contrary to UDT, isn’t even necessarily bad news. It probably just means that your designers lucked out more than they deserved, which would be good news.
But that doesn’t change the fact that your designers were stupid, and that you ought to want to do better. You ought to modify yourself and any of your progeny to act more in accord with UDT in the future.
I agree. The way I think of it is this:
If you find yourself deciding contrary to UDT you may infer that either
your designer was stupider or crazier than you, or
your designer was smarter or less crazy than you.
In the first case, your designer failed to realize something that you would have realized, had you been in your designer’s place. In the second case, your designer knew something that you would not have known in your designer’s place.
For example, if you find yourself turning down Omega in Pascal’s Mugging [ETA: I meant the Counterfactual Mugging], you may infer that either
your designer failed to design you in a way that you would have expected would maximize your utility, or
your designer somehow predicted, with sufficient confidence, how Omega’s coin would land, and so designed you to do what is best in that case.
Of course, as a present-day human, you already knew that (1) is the case, not (2). You were designed by a stupid process of natural selection. You already knew that your designer didn’t take into account the possibility of being confronted by something like Omega. It’s true that other humans contributed some modest amount to your design, through education and the art of rationality. However, even these additions were made by people who were, for the most part, crazier or stupider than you are now.
So, finding that you are declining Omega, contrary to UDT, isn’t even necessarily bad news. It probably just means that your designers lucked out more than they deserved, which would be good news.
But that doesn’t change the fact that your designers were stupid, and that you ought to want to do better. You ought to modify yourself and any of your progeny to act more in accord with UDT in the future.