Any belief you have about the nature of reality, that does not inform your anticipations in any way, is meaningless.
On a tangent—I think the subjectivist flavor of that is unfortunate. You’re echoing Eliezer’s Making Beliefs Pay Rent, but the anticipations that he’s talking about are “anticipations of sensory experience”. Ultimately, we are subject to natural selection, so maybe a more important rent to pay than anticipation of sensory experiences, is not being removed from the gene pool. So we might instead say, “any belief you have about the nature of reality, that does not improve your chances of survival in any way, is meaningless.”
Elsewhere, in his article on Newcomb’s paradox, Eliezer says:
I don’t generally disagree with anything you wrote. Perhaps we miscommunicated.
“any belief you have about the nature of reality, that does not improve your chances of survival in any way, is meaningless.”
I think that would depend on how one uses “meaningless” but I appreciate wholeheartedly the sentiment that a rational agent wins, with the caveat that winning can mean something very different for various agents.
On a tangent—I think the subjectivist flavor of that is unfortunate. You’re echoing Eliezer’s Making Beliefs Pay Rent, but the anticipations that he’s talking about are “anticipations of sensory experience”. Ultimately, we are subject to natural selection, so maybe a more important rent to pay than anticipation of sensory experiences, is not being removed from the gene pool. So we might instead say, “any belief you have about the nature of reality, that does not improve your chances of survival in any way, is meaningless.”
Elsewhere, in his article on Newcomb’s paradox, Eliezer says:
Survival is ultimate victory.
I don’t generally disagree with anything you wrote. Perhaps we miscommunicated.
I think that would depend on how one uses “meaningless” but I appreciate wholeheartedly the sentiment that a rational agent wins, with the caveat that winning can mean something very different for various agents.