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I understand that a lot of issues are solved, like the existence of god and so on, but I for one still haven't gotten an appropriate explanation as to why my claim, which seems perfectly valid to me, is incorrect. That proposal is going to further hinder this kind of discussion and debate.
And as far as I can tell, I'm correct. It's honestly very concerning to me that a bunch of lesswrongers have failed to follow this line of reasoning to its natural conclusion. Maybe I'm just not using the correct community-specific shibboleths, but the only one who's actually followed through on the logic is gwern. I look forward to seeing his counter reply to this.
In this case my judgement of the probabilities is that we are completely justified in ignoring the threat.
Do you consider my pascals mugging to be less likely then the general examples of the genre, or do you think that all pascals muggings" probabilities are that we are completely justified in ignoring the threat."
One of which is in a temporally advantaged position in which he can do anything you can do and do more in addition to that - a strictly superior position.
Sorry, explain to me how this hypothetical god-being can exceed my threat consistently? Presuming we are both from the same privileged outside-your-time perspective?
Your strategy doesn't work. Deal with it.
I'm afraid you still haven't shown me enough evidence. If you'll bear with me a moment longer, I'll try to explain it better.
But then the mugger can just toss in a Turing machine to his offer, and now your attempt to analyze his offer is equivalent to solving a halting problem
I want you to think of exactly the consequences of that. Now you have two omnipotent god entities, each offering you a more or less random result. All you know about the result is that it's going to be positive or negative. One offers you a random positive result if you kill a baby, one offers you a random negative result if you kill a baby. Do you get, on average and over a very large sample size, more utility from killing the baby or not killing her?
Fair enough. Would you mind explaining your intent then?
Well it depends. Is the likelihood of it affecting reality around the same likelihood as me torturing everybody with my god powers? If it's significantly higher then that, I'd argue it's not an actual pascals mugging. Hard to know exactly where to draw the line though.
If it's not significantly higher then that, then you have to balance against my threat to torture everybody.
Well done. Roryokane mentioned it up here however.
And their claim afterwards? Any threat you can make, they can make. You see why this is a dead end?
That's kind of what I'm trying to point out here. It is a dead end, but I'm actually claiming the below. Sure, someone else can also claim the below as well. We can both make the claims. Now, who do you believe more?
But lets formalize my claim. My claim is that I will make n+1 utilitons happen if n is positive or n-1 utilitons happen is n is negative, as long as you do the opposite of what they tell you to do.
Where n is how many utilitons they offer given any result.
I'm outside of your conception of time. So if they make the threat after this is of no concern to me.
Err, yes. Maybe it is. That's what I'm trying to find out...
Are you saying that I should take some action with the knowledge that it might just be a quirk in the system? Like not posting my hypothesis?
Ahh, makes sense. I actually found many different and interesting solutions to pascals mugging with my search terms though. Just not this "counter" solution.
This thread already shows up pretty close to the top for searches of "pascals mugging solutions" that I've attempted. For that exact phrase it's number 3, and has been before you posted this. I don't know that this particular solution needs to be more closely associated with the search terms then it already is.
If we have two gods, one claiming that if I do X, they'll mug me, and one claiming that if I don't do X they'll mug me, well I'm probably going to believe the god that isn't fuzzy and celery...
Any precommitment you make a mugger can just trivially overcome.
The same is true for me. Any threat the mugger makes I can trivially overcome, being a god entity and all that.
I'll reward/punish a suitably higher number of negative or positive utilitons if they include a higher number of negative or positive utilitons. Rest assured I can at least match their raw computing power from where I am.
I'm always going to claim that my threat is equal to or greater then their threat. Make sense?
Because I doubt I can remember all of them. Also, I'm not entirely clear on why you have "quotes" around search-fu. It's a pretty accepted term on the internet. Search-fu is the skill one is employing when searching for something.
A more reasonable question seems to me like asking how I arrived at the answer, not asking how I failed to arrive at the answer. I find it odd that you'd go that particular route, and would be very interested if you could expand on why you wanted to see all of my failed attempts, instead of my one successful attempt?
Seeing all my failed attempts is more difficult for me to write out (there were a few of them) and contains less usable information. I'm curios as to why you'd pick that instead of what seems to me like the more reasonable "post the search term that got you the answer".
I never threatened to harm you. Yes, on average, you're significantly more likely to be in the torture group then where you are now, but anthropic principle and all that.
Not quite in the same class as the listed software. Useful, I've used them, but they get really complicated with more variables. If you look at what they've got, it doesn't exactly seem bayesian. They don't work of probability, but off of absolute truths. Debating each piece of minutia in a sort of tree structure. It could definitely be improved upon.
a suitably higher number if they include a higher (plausible, from my external viewpoint) number. Rest assured I can at least match their raw computing power from where I am.
So I'll add a couple of orders of magnitude. I'm certain he will as well. It ultimately comes down to which of us you believe more. Do you have any reason to believe him more then myself?
As an omnipotent god entity I pledge to counter any any attempt at pascals muggings, as long as the mugger actually has the power to do what they say.
I’ve just canceled out your pledge.
Yep. You did, or you would have if you could actually carry through on your threats. I maintain that you can't. Now it's a question of which of our claims is more likely to be true. That's kind of the point here. When you're dealing with that small or a probability then the calculation becomes useless and marred by noise.
If I'm correct, and I'm one of the very few entities capable of doing this, who happen across your world anyway, then I can cancel out your claim and a bunch of future claims. If you're correct then I can't. So the question is, how unlikely are my claims? How unlikely are yours? Are your claims significantly more likely (on the tiny scales we're working with) then mine?
But yes, now that I look at it more in depth (thank you for the links), it's obvious that this is a reiteration of the "counter" solution, but with actual specific and viable threats behind it.
Apparently my search-fu is weak. Would you care to link, or suggest search terms that would make finding it less arduous?
EDIT: found it, I think, over here. One of the obvious issues is that it's not a credible threat.
So far I haven't seen a counter argument over there that satisfies me. If there is anywhere that they go into it more in depth, please do give it a link here.
The obvious solution is that I, as an incredibly powerful omnipotent god being, will mug anyone who spends too many resources dealing with pascals mugging style issues. If you have sufficient evidence that your particular example outweighs the risk of me doing that, then it's not exactly a pascals mugging, is it?
At the very least it shows there's a point behind which it's no longer useful to consider a very small probability in your utility calculation. That point is where the probability of your hypothesis being true is close to being as probable as my claim being true. So now the big question is "how unlikely is my claim"?
Because harry can carry through on his threats, and it seems the standard mental model for dementors has them being self-serving. A dementor should respond to threats, as far as I can tell.
When I was arguing this I was also taking into account that albus (and the great hall) had seen the dementor be afraid of harry, but it occurs to me that that was in the future.
Would you mind going over your cerebrolysin injections a bit?
/necrothurging
That ones actually a bit dangerous. The current regulator is rated to go that low, so it's going to be unreliable. In this instance unreliable means brain lesions.
they locked to his own
legilimency of some sort? or simply dramatic license. I don't remember any example of that particular action being pointed out that wasn't leglimency.
Yeah, I'm not arguing the point. I just have a weird sense of humour and "Because he's insane" tickles my funny bone.
My running theory is because he's a horcrux, but it's hard to say. Apparently there's one point where this fix departed from cannon, if we can pin point that you'll have your answer.
Alright, fine. An actual non-sarcastic answer. He plays with the trope of being insane. He's entire chaos legion cackles maniacally. He is very certain of strange ideas that are almost the opposite of that his experienced elders believe, about their areas of expertise.
From that point of view it's easy to see why people would think he's crazy. Not to mention the simple fact that he doesn't adhere to social rules like normal people do.
Bellatrix truly believed she was doomed, that's a strong belief against harrys position. Harry himself didn't fully believe it either. I'd argue that the extent of bellatrixes disbelief was greater then the great halls, although it's hard to say. That coupled with the fact that harry wasn't a true believer leads to a consensus that they're not leaving. Now we have 2 true believer on harrys side and a bunch of people who probably don't have real strong opinions one way or the other.
Also, it's entirely possible that magical ability decides how many "votes" you get in the consensus!dementors actions. Albus has reason to very very strongly believe that the dementor will do as he's told. Whether that's enough to overwhelm the rest of the voters, who believe that the dementor will not do what harry says, but fear them and would certainly be thrown off gourd by the first question, is hard to say.
My hope is that is answers "yes" to the first question, enough to raise enough doubt that the second question can also be a yes. Once the second question has been answered in the mysterious yes manner, hopefully it confuses the expectations of the crowd enough to allow the dementor to be ordered about. You start with a question that can be answered innocuously enough, but changes the expectations enough. Then you keep doing that. Like murder gandhi.
Because he's insane.
That's why it needs to be phrased in such a way as to put them off guard. if they're consensus!dementors then hopefully that seed of doubt combined with McGonigal's and Albus's belief could tip the balance. I admit my own attempt to create doubt (by using "just say yes or no") was a bit amateurish. I'd imagine that dark!harry can do better. Intuitively it seems like all he'd have to do is create doubt in the non-believers and his true believers could carry it.
the risk of revealing what he did in Azkaban (at least to MoR!Dumbledore).
Harry doesn't know of this risk. If we're modelling harry we should discount it.
True, but it doesn't have to actually communicate anything to its peers at azkaban. People just need to believe it did. It's obviously threatened in the middle of a court room, then starts flying to azkaban. Most people are going to presume that after something like that the dementors would leave Hermione alone. If they are consensus!dementors, not some-motive!dementors they'll still leave her alone, because people will believe they will leave her alone.
if they're some-motive!dementors, they'll leave her alone because they don't want to die. Either way he wins.
Even if the hypothesis that they don't really think, just behave in a way that people think they will, is true; it's phrased in such a way as to cause doubt in the purple-robes (the use of "just say yes or no" to make them think there's more information then they're getting) and belief in albus. If it just answers "yes" to the first question, it's still plausible within the purple robes belief sets, but hopefully makes harry seem mysterious enough that they believe the next question can also be a yes. Then albus, who's a true believer, pushes the consensus reality over to a yes with his understanding that harry has the power to destroy them.
Dementor, do you know who I am? Just say yes or no.
Do you know what I'm capable of? Once again, yes or no.
Leave Hermione be. Do not approach her or tread upon her thoughts during her time in azkaban. Run along and tell your compatriots at azkaban. Now.
Hopefully albus's belief would be enough to bolster them even if they don't have a mind if their own. If they do have a mind of their own they can be threatened, and have been in the past.
I've got several prototype devices for doing this. I'm having someone else sort through promising abstracts. If anyone has any experiments to try or any other questions let me know. I don't have the facilities to do proper studies of any sort, nor do I have an licensing or legal authority to conduct any studies. But I'll gladly answer things from a guy-in-his-basement perspective.
I'm not suggesting that any emotion should be attached to the lack of a great truth or true indisputable morals; I'm simply stating the obvious,
Harry with the ability to invent potions would be powerful enough to wreck the story.
Harry with time travel would be enough to wreak the story. Harry with an invisibility cloak would be enough to wreak the story, Hell, harry with rationality would be enough to wreak the story.
That is, unless the other obstacles were ramped up to deal with it. Give Harry a time turner and enemies clever enough to know how to check on him. Give harry an invisibility cloak but add spells that can detect the presence of a deathly hallow. Give Harry mastery of potions but make creating them slow or just plain difficult.
"even stopper death"
What I got from that was snape claiming to be able to temporarily store or stop death. To extend someones life. Not a great interpretation in hindsight, but I was ~ten the last time I heard that line so I'll forgive myself.
Morals are axioms. They're ultimately arbitrary. Relying on arguments with logic and reason for deciding the axioms of your morals is silly, go with what feels right. Then use logic and reason to best actualize on those beliefs. Try to trace morality too far down and you'll realize it's all ultimately pointless, or at least there's no single truth to the matter.
The had blinders as far as lying goes. Their species was simply incapable of it.