## Posts

Comment by Sonata Green on [Fiction] Lena (MMAcevedo) · 2021-05-14T23:31:10.423Z · LW · GW

Subtle?

Comment by Sonata Green on Utility Maximization = Description Length Minimization · 2021-02-26T00:56:45.996Z · LW · GW

I don't see how to do that, especially given that it's not a matter of meeting some threshold, but rather of maximizing a value that can grow arbitrarily.

Actually, you don't even need the ways-to-arrange argument. Suppose I want to predict/control the value of a particular nonnegative integer  (the number of cubbyholes), with monotonically increasing utility, e.g. . Then the encoding length  of a given outcome must be longer than the code length for each greater outcome: . However, code lengths must be a nonnegative integer number of code symbols in length, so for any given encoding  there are at most  shorter code lengths, so the encoding  must fail no later than .

Comment by Sonata Green on Utility Maximization = Description Length Minimization · 2021-02-25T08:38:08.896Z · LW · GW

What if I want greebles?

To misuse localdeity's example, suppose I want to build a wall with as many cubbyholes as possible, so that I can store my pigeons in them. In comparison to a blank wall, each hole makes the wall more complex, since there are more ways to arrange  holes than to arrange  holes (assuming the wall can accommodate arbitrarily many holes).