Andreas_Giger

Karma: 211

Andreas_Giger 8 Oct 2013 4:24 UTC
2 points
on: Open Thread, October 7 - October 12, 2013
There used to be a thread on LW that dealt with interesting ways to make small sums of money and ways to reduce expenditure. I think among other things going to Australia for a year was discussed. Does anyone know which thread I’m talking about and can provide me with the link? I can’t seem to find it.

Andreas_Giger 2 Oct 2013 8:54 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Scott Garrabrant’s comment on: The Ultimate Sleeping Beauty Problem
The “many more days that include them” is the 3^n part in my expression that is missing from any per day series. This 3^n is the sum of all interviews in that coin flip sequence (“coin flip sequence” = “all the interviews that are done because one coin flip showed up tails”, right?) and in the per day (aka per interview) series the exact same sum exists, just as 3^n summands.

In both cases, the weight of the later coin flip sequences increases, because the number of interviews (3^n) increases faster than the probabilistic weight of the coin flip (1/2^n) decreases.

However, this doesn’t mean that there exists no Cesàro sum. In fact the existence of such a sum can be proven for my original expression because the quotient of the last two numerators (if we include both odd and even coin flips) of the isomorphic series is always 3:1, regardless of wether the last coin flip was even or odd. (The same thing can be said for the quotient of the last 3^n and 3^(n-1) summands of your series. Basically, the per day series is just a dragged out per coin flip series.)

The reason why my estimation for the Cesàro sum is 0.5 is that if we express that quotient in a way that one coin state is written first, then it alternates between 3:1 and 1:3, which results in 1:1 which is 0.5. Obviously this is not exact maths, but it’s a good way for a quick estimation. (Alternatively, you could intuitively infer that if there exists a Cesàro sum it must be 0.5, because whether you look for even or odd coin flips gets increasingly irrelevant as the series approaches infinity.)

Also, since I haven’t previously touched upon the subject of the isomorphic series: If we call my original expression f, then we can construct a function g where g(n) = f(n)-f(n-1) with f(-1) = 0, and a series a = g(0) + g(1) + g(2) + …

Does that all make sense?

Andreas_Giger 2 Oct 2013 1:46 UTC
−6 points
in reply to: A1987dM’s comment on: Open Thread, September 30 - October 6, 2013
I hold the belief that Newcomb, regardless of Omega’s accuracy, is impossible in the universe I currently live in. Also, this is not what this discussion is about, so please refrain from derailing it further.

Andreas_Giger 2 Oct 2013 1:42 UTC
−2 points
in reply to: Andreas_Giger’s comment on: Open Thread, September 30 - October 6, 2013
I think people have slightly misunderstood what I was referring to with this:
- There exist no problems shown to be possible in real life for which CDT yields superior results.
- There exists at least one problem shown to be possible in real life for which TDT yields superior results.
My question was whether there is a conclusive, formal proof for this, not whether this is widely accepted on this site (I already realized TDT is popular). If someone thinks such a proof is given somewhere in an article (this one?) then please direct me to the point in the article where I can find that proof. I’m very suspicious about this though, since the wiki makes blatantly false claims, e.g. that TDT performs better in one-shot PD than CDT, while in fact it can only perform better if access to source coude is given. So the wiki article feels more like promotion than anything.

Also, I would be very interested to hear about what kind of reaction from the scientific community TDT has received. Like, very very interested.

Andreas_Giger 2 Oct 2013 0:15 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Scott Garrabrant’s comment on: The Ultimate Sleeping Beauty Problem
I take it that my approach was not discussed in the heated debate you had? Because it seems a good exercise for grad students.

Also, I don’t understand why you think a per interview series would net fundamentally different results than a per coin toss series. I’d be interested in your reports after you (or your colleagues) have done the math.

Andreas_Giger 1 Oct 2013 22:04 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Scott Garrabrant’s comment on: The Ultimate Sleeping Beauty Problem

I could have said that the beauty was simulated floor(5^x) times where x is a random real between 0 and n

Ah, I see now what you mean. Disregarding this new problem for the moment, you can still formulate my original expression on a per-interview basis, and it will still have the same Cesàro sum because it still diverges in the same manner; it just does so more continuously. If you envision a graph of an isomorphic series of my original expression, it will have “saw teeth” where it alternates between even and odd coin flips, and if you formulate that series on a per-interview basis, those saw teeth just get increasingly longer, which has no impact on the Cesàro sum (because the series alternates between those saw teeth).

Concerning your new problem, it can still be expressed as a series with a Cesàro sum, it’s just a lot more complicated. If I were you, I’d first try to find the simplest variant of that problem with the same properties. Still, the fact that this is solvable in an analogous way should be clear, because you can essentially solve the “floor(5^x) times where x is a random real between 0 and n” part with a series for x (similar to the one for the original problem) and then have a series of those series for n. Basically you’re adding another dimension (or recursion level), but not doing anything fundamentally different.

Andreas_Giger 1 Oct 2013 21:00 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Scott Garrabrant’s comment on: The Ultimate Sleeping Beauty Problem
What do you mean by “time” in this case? It sounds like you want to interrupt the interviews at an arbitrary point even though Beauty knows that interviews are quantised in a 3^n fashion.

Andreas_Giger 1 Oct 2013 20:40 UTC
0 points
on: The Ultimate Sleeping Beauty Problem
(1/2 3^0 + ¹⁄₈ 3^2 + …) / (1/2 3^0 + ¹⁄₄ 3^1 + ¹⁄₈ * 3^2 + …)

… which can be transformed into an infinite series with a Cesàro sum of 0.5, so that’s my answer.

Andreas_Giger 1 Oct 2013 19:58 UTC
−6 points
in reply to: Oscar_Cunningham’s comment on: Open Thread, September 30 - October 6, 2013
Parfit’s hitchhiker looks like a thinly veiled Omega problem to me. At the very least, considering the lack of scientific rigorousness in Ekman’s research, it should count as quite dubious, so adopting a new decision theory on the basis of that particular problem does not seem rational to me.

Andreas_Giger 1 Oct 2013 19:43 UTC
2 points
in reply to: IlyaShpitser’s comment on: Open Thread, September 30 - October 6, 2013
I don’t like the notion of using different decision theories depending on the situation, because the very idea of a decision theory is that it is consistent and comprehensive. Now if TDT were formulated as a plugin that seamlessly integrated into CDT in such a way that the resulting decision theory could be applied to any and all problems and would always yield optimal results, then that would be reason for me to learn about TDT. However, from what I gathered this doesn’t seem to be the case?

Andreas_Giger 1 Oct 2013 11:07 UTC
0 points
on: Open Thread, September 30 - October 6, 2013
I saw this post from EY a while ago and felt kind of repulsed by it:

I no longer feel much of a need to engage with the hypothesis that rational agents mutually defect in the oneshot or iterated PD. Perhaps you meant to analyze causal-decision-theory agents?

Never mind the factual shortcomings, I’m mostly interested in the rejection of CDT as rational. I’ve been away from LW for a while and wasn’t keeping up on the currently popular beliefs on this site, and I’m considering learning a bit more about TDT (or UDT or whatever the current iteration is called). I have a feeling this might be a huge waste of time though, so before I dive into the subject I would like to confirm that TDT has objectively been proven to be clearly superior to CDT, by which I (intuitively) mean:
- There exist no problems shown to be possible in real life for which CDT yields superior results.
- There exists at least one problem shown to be possible in real life for which TDT yields superior results.
“Shown to be possible in real life” excludes Omega, many-worlds, or anything of similar dubiousness. So has this been proven? Also, is there any kind of reaction from the scientific community in regards to TDT/UDT?

Andreas_Giger 28 Sep 2013 19:32 UTC
0 points
in reply to: John_Maxwell’s comment on: Making Fun of Things is Easy

How many people actually did the exercises katydee suggested? I know I didn’t.

I did, but I don’t think people realised it.

Andreas_Giger 28 Sep 2013 10:26 UTC
4 points
on: Why aren’t there more forum-blogs like LW?
There are forums with popular blog sections, e.g. teamliquid.net which also features a wiki. There are also forums that treat top level posts differently, e.g. by displaying them prominently at the top of each thread page. None of this is really new.

On the other hand, I feel that in some regards, LW is too different from traditional forums, like that threads are sorted by OP time rather than the time of the last reply, which makes it very difficult to have sustained discussions in these threads because they stay hot for a few days, but afterwards people simply stop replying, and at best you have two or three people continuing to post without anyone else reading what they write.

Andreas_Giger 28 Sep 2013 0:51 UTC
9 points
in reply to: lukeprog’s comment on: Intelligence Amplification and Friendly AI
You should probably edit your post then, because it currently suggests an IQ-atheism correlation that just isn’t supported by the cited article.

Andreas_Giger 27 Sep 2013 23:27 UTC
4 points
on: Intelligence Amplification and Friendly AI
Where in the linked article does it say that atheism correlates with IQ past 140? I cannot find this.

Andreas_Giger 27 Sep 2013 23:12 UTC
6 points
on: A game of angels and devils
The current education system in Europe does a much better job at making education unpopular than at actually preventing those who may positively impact technology and society in the future from acquiring the necessary education to do so. Turning education into a chore is merely an annoyance for anyone involved, but doesn’t actually hold back technological advance in any way.

If I was the devil, I would try to restrict internet access for as many people as possible. As long as you have internet, traditional education isn’t really needed for humanity to advance technologically.

Also, does the devil win if humanity goes extinct? Because in that case I would instead try to make the best education available for free to all children, and focus on getting a few Satanists in positions where you get to push red buttons. Since the devil is traditionally displayed as persuasive and manipulative to the point that intelligent and well-educated people tend to more receptive to his offers than normal folk, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Just imagine a few Hitlers with modern nuclear ICBMs.

Hanlon’s razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

Never heard of Hanlon’s razor before, but I think it makes much more sense if you replace stupidity with indifference.

Andreas_Giger 27 Sep 2013 22:20 UTC
−1 points
on: Making Fun of Things is Easy
I’m not sure if this post is meant to be taken seriously. It’s always “easy” to make fun of X; what’s difficult is to spread your opinion about X by making fun of X. Obviously this requires a target audience that doesn’t already share your opinion about X, and if you look at people making fun of things (e.g. on the net), usually the audience they’re catering to already shares their views. This is because the most common objective of making fun of things is not to convince people of anything, but to create a group identity, raise team morale, and so on. There is zero point talking about the difficulty of that because there is none.

Someone would have to be very susceptible to be influenced by people making fun of things. I guess rationality doesn’t have all that much to do with how influenceable you are, but this post strikes me as overly naïve concerning the intentions of people. If someone makes fun of X, they’re clearly not interested in an objective discussion about X, so why would you be swayed by their arguments?

Whether or not people are making fun of it is not necessarily a good signal as to whether or not it’s actually good.

Gee, you think?

Andreas_Giger 27 Sep 2013 21:44 UTC
1 point
on: Prisoner’s Dilemma vs the Afterlife
I have a dream that one day, people will stop bringing up the (Iterated) Prisoner’s Dilemma whenever decisions involve consequences. IPD is a symmetrical two-player game with known payouts, rational agents, and no persistent memory (in tournaments). Real life is something completely different, and equating TFT with superficially similar real life strategies is just plain wrong.

The possibility of the existence of immortality/afterlife/reincarnation certainly affects how people behave in certain situations, this is hardly a revelation. Running PD-like simulations with the intent to gain insight into real life behaviour of humans in society is a bad idea usually proposed by people who don’t know much about game theory but like some of the terms commonly associated with PD.

Please stop using the words “cooperate” and “defect” as if they would in any way refer to comparable things in real life and PD. It will make you much less confused.

I don’t have a problem with the proposition of adding uncertainty about the match length to IPD, and it is hardly a new idea. Just please don’t talk about PD/IPD when you’re talking about real life and vice versa, and don’t make inferences about one based on the other.

Andreas_Giger 12 Jul 2013 15:03 UTC
4 points
in reply to: Decius’s comment on: Prisoner’s dilemma tournament results
I think there would more people interested in playing if strategies could be submitted in pseudocode, so that would be great.

Andreas_Giger 12 Jul 2013 14:58 UTC
9 points
in reply to: AlexMennen’s comment on: Prisoner’s dilemma tournament results
Am I the only one who sees a problem in that we’re turning a non-zero-sum game into a winner-take-all tournament? Perhaps instead of awarding a limited resource like bitcoins to the “winner”, each player should be awarded an unlimited resource such as karma or funny cat pictures according to their strategy’s performance.