Another worry is that probabilities are so useful that we won’t find a better alternative.
I think of probabilities as language for answering the earlier basic question of “What bets should I make?” For example, “There’s a 25% chance (i.e. 1:3 odds) that X will happen” is (as I see it) shorthand for “My potential payoff better be at least 3 times bigger than my potential loss for betting on X to be worth it.” So probabilities express thresholds in your answers to the question “What bets on event X should I take?” That is, from a pragmatic angle, subjective probabilities aren’t supposed to be deep truths about the world; they’re expressions of our best guesses about how willing we should be to bet on various events. (Other considerations also make probabilities particularly well-fitting tools for describing our preferences about bets.)
So rejecting the use of probabilities (as I understand them) under severe uncertainty seems to have an unacceptable, maybe even absurd, conclusion: the rejection of consistent thresholds for deciding whether to bet on uncertain events. This is a mistake—if we accept/reject bets on some event without a consistent threshold for what reward:loss ratios are worth taking, then we’ll necessarily be doing silly things like refusing to take a bet, and then accepting a bet on the same event for a less favorable reward:loss ratio.
You might be thinking something like “ok, so you can always describe an action as endorsing some betting threshold, but that doesn’t mean it’s useful to think about this explicitly.” I’d disagree, because not recognizing our betting threshold makes it harder to notice and avoid mistakes like the one above. It also takes away clarity and precision of thought that’s helpful for criticizing our choices, e.g. it makes an extremely high betting threshold about the value of x-risk reduction look like agnosticism.
Some others are focused on making decisions. From this angle, EV maximization and Bayesian epistemology were never supposed to be frameworks for creating knowledge—they’re frameworks for turning knowledge into decisions, and your arguments don’t seem to be enough for refuting them as such.
Yes agreed, but these two things become intertwined when a philosophy makes people decide to stop creating knowledge. In this case, it’s longtermism preventing the creation of moral and scientific knowledge by grinding the process of error correction to a halt, where “error correction” in this context means continuously reevaluating philanthropic organizations based on their near and medium term consequences, in order to compare results obtained against results expected.
Both approaches pass on the buck, that’s why I defined ‘creativity’ here to mean: ‘whatever unknown software the brain is running to get out of the infinite regress problem.’ And one doesn’t necessarily need to answer your question, because there’s no requirement that the criticism take EV form (although it can).
these two things become intertwined when a philosophy makes people decide to stop creating knowledge
Yeah, fair. (Although less relevant to less naive applications of this philosophy, which as Ben puts it draw some rather than all of our attention away from knowledge creation.)
Both approaches pass on the buck
I’m not sure I see where you’re coming from here. EV does pass the buck on plenty of things (on how to generate options, utilities, probabilities), but as I put it, I thought it directly answered the question (rather than passing the buck) about what kinds of bets to make/how to act under uncertainty:
we should be willing to bet on X happening in proportion to our best guess about the strength of the evidence for the claim that X will happen.
Also, regarding this:
And one doesn’t necessarily need to answer your question, because there’s no requirement that the criticism take EV form
I don’t see how that gets you out of facing the question. If criticism uses premises about how we should act under uncertainty (which it must do, to have bearing on our choices), then a discussion will remain badly unfinished until it’s scrutinized those premises. We could scrutinize them on a case-by-case basis, but that’s wasting time if some kinds of premises can be refuted in general.
2.
Another worry is that probabilities are so useful that we won’t find a better alternative.
I think of probabilities as language for answering the earlier basic question of “What bets should I make?” For example, “There’s a 25% chance (i.e. 1:3 odds) that X will happen” is (as I see it) shorthand for “My potential payoff better be at least 3 times bigger than my potential loss for betting on X to be worth it.” So probabilities express thresholds in your answers to the question “What bets on event X should I take?” That is, from a pragmatic angle, subjective probabilities aren’t supposed to be deep truths about the world; they’re expressions of our best guesses about how willing we should be to bet on various events. (Other considerations also make probabilities particularly well-fitting tools for describing our preferences about bets.)
So rejecting the use of probabilities (as I understand them) under severe uncertainty seems to have an unacceptable, maybe even absurd, conclusion: the rejection of consistent thresholds for deciding whether to bet on uncertain events. This is a mistake—if we accept/reject bets on some event without a consistent threshold for what reward:loss ratios are worth taking, then we’ll necessarily be doing silly things like refusing to take a bet, and then accepting a bet on the same event for a less favorable reward:loss ratio.
You might be thinking something like “ok, so you can always describe an action as endorsing some betting threshold, but that doesn’t mean it’s useful to think about this explicitly.” I’d disagree, because not recognizing our betting threshold makes it harder to notice and avoid mistakes like the one above. It also takes away clarity and precision of thought that’s helpful for criticizing our choices, e.g. it makes an extremely high betting threshold about the value of x-risk reduction look like agnosticism.
Thanks again for your thoughtful post!
Hey Mauricio! Two brief comments -
Yes agreed, but these two things become intertwined when a philosophy makes people decide to stop creating knowledge. In this case, it’s longtermism preventing the creation of moral and scientific knowledge by grinding the process of error correction to a halt, where “error correction” in this context means continuously reevaluating philanthropic organizations based on their near and medium term consequences, in order to compare results obtained against results expected.
Both approaches pass on the buck, that’s why I defined ‘creativity’ here to mean: ‘whatever unknown software the brain is running to get out of the infinite regress problem.’ And one doesn’t necessarily need to answer your question, because there’s no requirement that the criticism take EV form (although it can).
Hey Vaden, thanks!
Yeah, fair. (Although less relevant to less naive applications of this philosophy, which as Ben puts it draw some rather than all of our attention away from knowledge creation.)
I’m not sure I see where you’re coming from here. EV does pass the buck on plenty of things (on how to generate options, utilities, probabilities), but as I put it, I thought it directly answered the question (rather than passing the buck) about what kinds of bets to make/how to act under uncertainty:
Also, regarding this:
I don’t see how that gets you out of facing the question. If criticism uses premises about how we should act under uncertainty (which it must do, to have bearing on our choices), then a discussion will remain badly unfinished until it’s scrutinized those premises. We could scrutinize them on a case-by-case basis, but that’s wasting time if some kinds of premises can be refuted in general.
Check out chapter 13 in Beginning of Infinity when you can—everything I was saying in that post is much better explained there :)