Decision theories should usually be seen as normative, not descriptive. How “realistic” something is, is not very important, especially for thought experiments. Decision theory cashes out where you find a situation that can indeed be analyzed with it, and where you’ll secure a better outcome by following theory’s advice. For example, noticing acausal control has advantages in many real-world situations (Parfit’s Hitchhiker variants). Eliezer’s TDT paper discusses this towards the end of Part I.
I believe you misinterpreted my “unrealistic requirements”. A better choice of words would have been “unachievably stringent requirements”. I wasn’t complaining that Omega and the like are unrealistic. At least not here.
The version I have of Eliezer’s TDT paper doesn’t have a “Part I”. It is dated “September 2010 and has 112 pages. Is there a better version available?
I don’t understand your other comments. Or, perhaps more accurately, I don’t understand what they were in response to.
Decision theories should usually be seen as normative, not descriptive. How “realistic” something is, is not very important, especially for thought experiments. Decision theory cashes out where you find a situation that can indeed be analyzed with it, and where you’ll secure a better outcome by following theory’s advice. For example, noticing acausal control has advantages in many real-world situations (Parfit’s Hitchhiker variants). Eliezer’s TDT paper discusses this towards the end of Part I.
I believe you misinterpreted my “unrealistic requirements”. A better choice of words would have been “unachievably stringent requirements”. I wasn’t complaining that Omega and the like are unrealistic. At least not here.
The version I have of Eliezer’s TDT paper doesn’t have a “Part I”. It is dated “September 2010 and has 112 pages. Is there a better version available?
I don’t understand your other comments. Or, perhaps more accurately, I don’t understand what they were in response to.
“Part I” is chapters 1-9. (This concept is referred to in the paper itself.)