Yeah, “calculate” was the key word. Pascal’s mugging is a problem for someone who is doing explicit math.
Your examples of “losing large amounts of money” and “launch nuclear missiles that kill billions” are not anywhere near the correct order of magnitude to compare to any conceivable probability times 3^^^^3 lives.
Okay, I″ve had time to think about this, and I’ve realized two entirely different somethings, both of which appear to be as a result of me trying to think about this more from a math/programming/probability perspective. However, they start off with opposite viewpoints so it doesn’t seem likely that they are both right, unless the math involved is simply that complicated, in which case, it’s just beyond me. Despite that, I can’t tell which angle appears to be more correct (or perhaps they are just both wrong again.) Can you help me out?
1: Being threatened with 3^^^^3 disutility, is bizarrely, not that bad. Because a second person threatening you can simply threaten you with endless disutility. Given an infinite utility function, the slightest chance of that happening should be strictly worse then any finite number (from a calculation perspective)
In essence, this is saying
A chance of:
u=u-3^^^^3
is not as bad as a smaller chance of:
do;
u=u-3^^^^3
repeat;
or really, even a smaller chance of:
do;
u=u-1;
repeat;
And since either way, we are imagining magical powers from outside the matrix, it’s does not seem like being caught in an endless loop requires any significant amount more effort on the part of the threatener, I mean, in theory, he could just revoke your ability to die, and put you in a box where someone teleports in, fearful of their life for 30 seconds or so, and then dies painfully, with you feeling their pain physically, but not dying… and then a new entirely different person appears in, with no defined end condition. (Whereas with the original threat, people will stop appearing in the box and you will be released after 3^^^^3 people.) Either way, all he needs to is affect two people at a time and a box. An endless condition is almost easier in that he doesn’t need to track the number of times he does it. So maybe it’s not even less likely.
So I have to think “Am I more likely to suffer endless disutility if I do or don’t give into the demand?”
“Well, if it’s a real demand, then clearly people may randomly ask me for 5 dollars to avoid disutility in the future. If one of those is threatening endless disutility, I’d better keep my five dollars for him, since endless disutility would be infinitely worse.”
or perhaps
“Well, if it’s a real demand, then nothing stops people from mugging me in the future for an endless amount of disutility, while I am disabled from the disutility this guy is inflicting on me. I’d better give away my five dollars, since the slight chance of endless disutility would be infinitely worse.”
or perhaps he was aware of that and just threatened me with endless disutility right off the bat.
Since this doesn’t seem to go anywhere, that is why I thought of point 2.
2: The mere possibility of being threatened with 3^^^^3 disutility, is enough to drive you insane. If you are Pascal’s Mugged, then usually you are certain that you’re being Pascal’s Mugged. However, there’s always the possibility of a communications break down.
Let’s say a person is talking to you over a static filled communications channel. You’re about pretty sure that the person is either actually mugging you, or just asking about Pascal’s Mugging in general, but it’s 50-50 either way.
As you pointed out, 3^^^^3 lives is of inconceivable magnitude. halving the chance is not likely to change your behavior, so you would respond as if you were certain it is a Pascal’s Mugging. Okay.
How much static would you have to have to NOT respond in this way?
I mean, let’s say you’re aware of the fact that “PMUG” is an abbreviation for Pascal’s mugging someone, because it’s four letters, and Pascal’s mugging is talked about alot.
You receive a message that is four random alpha characters. Apparently, it’s just utterly garbled, so you know the original message was 4 characters long, but that’s it. Other than that, it could be any 4 random characters, from “AAAA” to “ZZZZ” Well, there is a 1 in 456,976 (26^4) chance it’s was originally the message “PMUG”, and if there is a 1 in 456,976 chance of their being a Pascal Mugging, clearly you should send the person who sent that garbled message money if you would send money in the original Pascal’s Mugging. (Because it would seem unlikely that the probability times the disutility is sufficiently small that dividing it by less than a million would change much.
You get an email from someone. It’s a Paypal account, followed by the first 50 characters of the original Pascal’s Mugging paper, followed by unreadable static. Do you send money to the Paypal account? Well, let’s say you think there is a 1 in a trillion chance they were trying to mug you and the email client glitched, and the rest of the probability is that this is some random fishing ploy copying a sample of plain text from somewhere. Presumably, it’s still worth it to give, if you would give to the original mugging, since it seems likely that even if you think there is a 1 in a trillion chance that you are being mugged, it is worth it to give.
You receive a phone call from someone. It’s a dropped call, and you have no information about that phone number, but perhaps you have heard that at least once, someone attempted to Pascal’s Mug someone over the phone. You have no idea if that was the case here, but perhaps you have heard from a reliable source that the phone company generated statistics on it, and Pascal’s Muggings only happened in 1 in 1 quintillion phone calls. Your phone can text that phone number 5 dollars. Presumably, if you have a guess that there was a 1 in 1 quintillion chance it might have been a mugging, and you would give into muggings, then you would send that number 5 dollars.
Let’s say you go to work and your coworker says “Hi. Are you still worried about Pascal’s Mugging?” You have heard that people under stress will sometimes experience verbal confusion, where they misunderstand parts of a sentence. It occurs to you while this is very unlikely, there is perhaps a 1 in a googol chance of this happening to you right as you come in the door, and that your coworker is trying to Pascal’s Mug you. If you would give into the original Pascal’s Mugging, then you should give your Coworker 5 dollars, right?
I suppose what I’m getting at is: If you would give into Pascal’s mugging, and you would give into Pascal’s mugging under uncertainty that the communication even is a mugging, then there should at some point be an amount of uncertainty that you would NOT give into Pascal’s mugging, or it seems to suggest that you will start giving 5 dollars out to almost any stimuli out of paranoia, (without necessarily even ever actually being Pascal’s mugged) because that stimuli MIGHT have been a mugging.
Yeah, “calculate” was the key word. Pascal’s mugging is a problem for someone who is doing explicit math.
Your examples of “losing large amounts of money” and “launch nuclear missiles that kill billions” are not anywhere near the correct order of magnitude to compare to any conceivable probability times
3^^^^3lives.Okay, I″ve had time to think about this, and I’ve realized two entirely different somethings, both of which appear to be as a result of me trying to think about this more from a math/programming/probability perspective. However, they start off with opposite viewpoints so it doesn’t seem likely that they are both right, unless the math involved is simply that complicated, in which case, it’s just beyond me. Despite that, I can’t tell which angle appears to be more correct (or perhaps they are just both wrong again.) Can you help me out?
1: Being threatened with 3^^^^3 disutility, is bizarrely, not that bad. Because a second person threatening you can simply threaten you with endless disutility. Given an infinite utility function, the slightest chance of that happening should be strictly worse then any finite number (from a calculation perspective)
In essence, this is saying
A chance of: u=u-3^^^^3
is not as bad as a smaller chance of: do; u=u-3^^^^3 repeat;
or really, even a smaller chance of: do; u=u-1; repeat;
And since either way, we are imagining magical powers from outside the matrix, it’s does not seem like being caught in an endless loop requires any significant amount more effort on the part of the threatener, I mean, in theory, he could just revoke your ability to die, and put you in a box where someone teleports in, fearful of their life for 30 seconds or so, and then dies painfully, with you feeling their pain physically, but not dying… and then a new entirely different person appears in, with no defined end condition. (Whereas with the original threat, people will stop appearing in the box and you will be released after 3^^^^3 people.) Either way, all he needs to is affect two people at a time and a box. An endless condition is almost easier in that he doesn’t need to track the number of times he does it. So maybe it’s not even less likely.
So I have to think “Am I more likely to suffer endless disutility if I do or don’t give into the demand?”
“Well, if it’s a real demand, then clearly people may randomly ask me for 5 dollars to avoid disutility in the future. If one of those is threatening endless disutility, I’d better keep my five dollars for him, since endless disutility would be infinitely worse.”
or perhaps
“Well, if it’s a real demand, then nothing stops people from mugging me in the future for an endless amount of disutility, while I am disabled from the disutility this guy is inflicting on me. I’d better give away my five dollars, since the slight chance of endless disutility would be infinitely worse.”
or perhaps he was aware of that and just threatened me with endless disutility right off the bat.
Since this doesn’t seem to go anywhere, that is why I thought of point 2.
2: The mere possibility of being threatened with 3^^^^3 disutility, is enough to drive you insane. If you are Pascal’s Mugged, then usually you are certain that you’re being Pascal’s Mugged. However, there’s always the possibility of a communications break down.
Let’s say a person is talking to you over a static filled communications channel. You’re about pretty sure that the person is either actually mugging you, or just asking about Pascal’s Mugging in general, but it’s 50-50 either way.
As you pointed out, 3^^^^3 lives is of inconceivable magnitude. halving the chance is not likely to change your behavior, so you would respond as if you were certain it is a Pascal’s Mugging. Okay.
How much static would you have to have to NOT respond in this way?
I mean, let’s say you’re aware of the fact that “PMUG” is an abbreviation for Pascal’s mugging someone, because it’s four letters, and Pascal’s mugging is talked about alot.
You receive a message that is four random alpha characters. Apparently, it’s just utterly garbled, so you know the original message was 4 characters long, but that’s it. Other than that, it could be any 4 random characters, from “AAAA” to “ZZZZ” Well, there is a 1 in 456,976 (26^4) chance it’s was originally the message “PMUG”, and if there is a 1 in 456,976 chance of their being a Pascal Mugging, clearly you should send the person who sent that garbled message money if you would send money in the original Pascal’s Mugging. (Because it would seem unlikely that the probability times the disutility is sufficiently small that dividing it by less than a million would change much.
You get an email from someone. It’s a Paypal account, followed by the first 50 characters of the original Pascal’s Mugging paper, followed by unreadable static. Do you send money to the Paypal account? Well, let’s say you think there is a 1 in a trillion chance they were trying to mug you and the email client glitched, and the rest of the probability is that this is some random fishing ploy copying a sample of plain text from somewhere. Presumably, it’s still worth it to give, if you would give to the original mugging, since it seems likely that even if you think there is a 1 in a trillion chance that you are being mugged, it is worth it to give.
You receive a phone call from someone. It’s a dropped call, and you have no information about that phone number, but perhaps you have heard that at least once, someone attempted to Pascal’s Mug someone over the phone. You have no idea if that was the case here, but perhaps you have heard from a reliable source that the phone company generated statistics on it, and Pascal’s Muggings only happened in 1 in 1 quintillion phone calls. Your phone can text that phone number 5 dollars. Presumably, if you have a guess that there was a 1 in 1 quintillion chance it might have been a mugging, and you would give into muggings, then you would send that number 5 dollars.
Let’s say you go to work and your coworker says “Hi. Are you still worried about Pascal’s Mugging?” You have heard that people under stress will sometimes experience verbal confusion, where they misunderstand parts of a sentence. It occurs to you while this is very unlikely, there is perhaps a 1 in a googol chance of this happening to you right as you come in the door, and that your coworker is trying to Pascal’s Mug you. If you would give into the original Pascal’s Mugging, then you should give your Coworker 5 dollars, right?
I suppose what I’m getting at is: If you would give into Pascal’s mugging, and you would give into Pascal’s mugging under uncertainty that the communication even is a mugging, then there should at some point be an amount of uncertainty that you would NOT give into Pascal’s mugging, or it seems to suggest that you will start giving 5 dollars out to almost any stimuli out of paranoia, (without necessarily even ever actually being Pascal’s mugged) because that stimuli MIGHT have been a mugging.