So thermodynamics, at its core, has a certain twist of subjectivity; it is relative to things an observer knows. But the fuzzy parts of the subjectivity factor out cleanly in almost all practice, and the tiniest injection of perspective suffices to animate the mathematical core.
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Replying to @ESYudkowsky @Meaningness and
DT requires a larger injection of perspective; preference as well as probability. Like thermodynamics, you can inject this subjectivity in the wrong place and imagine that nobody comprehends the motions in a spinning cylinder and that the rotation is all waste heat.
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Replying to @ESYudkowsky @Meaningness and
But once you go so far as to map certain parts of the system onto preference and belief, the coherence theorems hold like the theorems they are. In that sense they're more universal, and less physically informative, than thermodynamics.
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Replying to @ESYudkowsky @Meaningness and
Most mappings on the system will be useless. If you regard a particular molecule as having compact preferences and beliefs, it will probably do very poorly. Human beings do have relatively compact preferences and beliefs, on the other hand, and applying it to humans make sense.
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Replying to @ESYudkowsky @Meaningness and
This is not because humans obey the prescriptions of decision theory. It is because humans are making things that can be viewed as decisions. This is not because human beliefs are coherent. It's because humans can be well-viewed as believing things even if incoherently.
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Replying to @ESYudkowsky @Meaningness and
It seems to me that you don't understand the very abstract use that is being made of decision theory. It's not a recipe or an algorithm. It's a generalization relating coherent or incoherent behavior to performance, making far more minimal assumptions than you seem to think.
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Well… I *think* I understand this; but I may be wrong! We clearly have very different cognitive styles, which makes it difficult for us to understand each other.
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Replying to @Meaningness @ESYudkowsky and
Seems like DT is used as Tool or Law. Many tools useful depending on agent/context/intent/goal. DT as Law analyzes agents/tools generally. Are there alternates? As Tool => yes, As Law => no(?) Am I Accurate? Helpful? Else?
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Replying to @michaelporcelli @ESYudkowsky and
I guess I’m not sure enough I understand what
@ESYudkowsky means by Law to respond to this confidently!2 replies 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @Meaningness @michaelporcelli and
I think by Law he probably means “a set of mathematical constraints that apply if you accept a particular set of axioms.” If you accept that set of axioms, then that is indeed the unique set of constraints that apply.
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There are two different things that contrast with Law (if that’s what Law means). Possibly some of the confusion is between those; we’ve got a 2x2 here. One distinction is constraints vs methods/algorithms. The other is math in the abstract vs math applied to reality.
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