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Comment by Luck (luck-1) on AGI ruin scenarios are likely (and disjunctive) · 2023-03-28T12:34:51.120Z · LW · GW

You have oversimplified vision on rationality of humanity. You see decisions that are harmful for humanity and conclude that they are irrational. But this logic only works under the assumption that humanity is one individual. Decisions that are harmful for humanity are in most cases beneficial to the decision-making person, and therefore they are not irrational - they are selfish. This gives us much more hope, because persuading a rational selfish person with logic is totally possible. 

Comment by Luck (luck-1) on A Proof of Occam's Razor · 2019-04-21T07:14:00.894Z · LW · GW

Oh look, if we definitely the complexity as "the date when hypothesis was published", then I can say that the prior probability that our earth stands on top of a whale, on top of a turtle on top of an elephant is the highest, because this hypothesis is the oldest. And the Occam's razor becomes "don't propose new hypotheses". Trinitrotrololol)

Comment by Luck (luck-1) on A Proof of Occam's Razor · 2019-04-21T06:59:03.566Z · LW · GW

I find it funny, that it works even in continuous case: suppose that we have probability density defined in R^n (or any other set). Then whatever bijection F:R <--> R^n we apply, the integral of probability density on that path should converge, therefore p(F(x)) goes to zero faster than 1/x. :)

Also, look: suppose the "real" universe is a random point x from some infinite set X. Let's say we are considering finite set of hypotheses "H". Probability that random hypothesis h € H is closest to x is 1/|H|. So the larger H is, the less likely it is that any particular point from it is the best description of our universe! Which gives us Occam's razor in terms of accuracy, instead of correctness, and works for uncountable sets of universes.

And in this case it is almost surely impossible to describe universe in a finite amount of symbols.