I am still reading the paper, but I have a question:
Conversely in the CGTA variant of Solomon’s Problem, a causal decision agent,
knowing in advance that he would have to choose between chewing gum and
avoiding gum, has no reason to precommit himself to avoiding gum. (pg. 9)
Why not? Based on earlier numbers (pg. 5), chewing gum will give you strictly better results. The paper even mentions that:
This table shows that whether you have the gene CGTA or not, your chance of
dying of a throat abscess goes down if you chew gum.
I don’t follow. Chewing gum is strictly better, so I’ll precommit to it. Precommitting to picking only box B is better than precomitting to picking box A and B, so if I had to precommit I would choose to do so for box B.
Nonetheless, it is evidence of a bad thing.
That has been debunked.
I guess I am just following the parallels between the two problems.
Yes, you might want to precommit to it. But you don’t want to precommit against it, which is Eliezer’s point. In the parallel example (Newcombe’s box), you do want to precommit against the thing which seems to strictly dominate, and the difference between the two cases is the justification for treating time-invariance as important.
Ok, hah, I don’t think we disagree on anything here. I think I made a mistake in reading “has no reason to precommit himself to avoiding gum” as “has no reason to precommit himself [to anything]”. My bad. Thanks for helping out!
Does he need to precommit to chew gum? I haven’t read the doc. in months, but I don’t recall their being any danger of temporal inconsistancy in that case.
I am still reading the paper, but I have a question:
Why not? Based on earlier numbers (pg. 5), chewing gum will give you strictly better results. The paper even mentions that:
What am I missing?
No reason to precommit to AVOID gum.
Gum is beneficial, so you don’t want to precommit against it. Nonetheless, it is evidence of a bad thing.
I don’t follow. Chewing gum is strictly better, so I’ll precommit to it. Precommitting to picking only box B is better than precomitting to picking box A and B, so if I had to precommit I would choose to do so for box B.
That has been debunked.
I guess I am just following the parallels between the two problems.
Yes, you might want to precommit to it. But you don’t want to precommit against it, which is Eliezer’s point. In the parallel example (Newcombe’s box), you do want to precommit against the thing which seems to strictly dominate, and the difference between the two cases is the justification for treating time-invariance as important.
Ok, hah, I don’t think we disagree on anything here. I think I made a mistake in reading “has no reason to precommit himself to avoiding gum” as “has no reason to precommit himself [to anything]”. My bad. Thanks for helping out!
That would be quite important! =)
Does he need to precommit to chew gum? I haven’t read the doc. in months, but I don’t recall their being any danger of temporal inconsistancy in that case.
No he doesn’t. Eliezer compares this version of Solomon’s problem to the Newcomb’s problem, where precommitment actually makes a difference.