[ExI] Probability is in the Mind

[Lee Corbin]

Jef writes

> Another excellent and highly applicable post by Eliezer on the
> Overcoming Bias blog.
> 
> <http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/03/mind-probabilit.html>
> 
>  Internalize this, and you're prepared to see how silly it is to argue
>  about personal identity on an ontological basis of what is, rather
>  than in epistemological terms of perceived agency.

Yes, I liked very much that essay too, for a number of reasons.

But as I said recently in the thread "The Many Dimensional Sculpture..."
(paraphrased slightly)

   One ultimate purpose of philosophy, and I argue the most important
   one, is be prescriptive. Philosophy most vitally---for me and for many
   others---should instruct us about what actions to take and what
   decisions to make.

and 

   Ultimately, again, I want to know what actions I should take and 
   what I can expect the different outcomes to be like.

And so I prefer to pose situations that call for decisions, for
actions. Only those test whether two people are really agreeing
or not. Otherwise, the terminological confusions and irreconcilable
philosophies may be simply moot.


By "copies" in these and similar threads, we always meant copies
of a version-of-you in a tiny branch of the overall multiverse.

* Action Item:  Should I dare teleport?  

   My analysis: the remote version-of-you is well
   within the fuzzy sphere (I haven't figured out how
   to translate this answer into Rafal's language)
   My answer is YES!

* Action Item: Do I benefit from the replication of copies that
   become a tiny bit different almost at once, and then have
   different thoughts as they go off and  explore many different
   planets?  Should I pay for that?

   Analysis: Either on Rafal's analysis or mine, the answer is
   "YES". He'd say one's tree of life is enriched, I'd say one
   get more runtime.

If I recall correctly, you don't have a lot of patience with
these kinds of real decisions because all that matters is
whether the world as a result more increasingly subscribes
to and implements increasing awareness and ever 
increasingly better approaches to progress, or some such.
(Am I warm?  :-)

But unless you delineate very exact, sharp *decisions* and
*actions* in scenarios that serve to distinguish your beliefs
from everyone else---and put less emphasis on the abstract
hard-to-follow verbiage---then you won't be facing up to
the true challenge, namely, prescribing courses of action.

Lee