One other thing on this section of the interview: Ajeya and Rob both say that the way the SSA leads to the doomsday argument seems sort-of “suspicious”. Ajeya then says that, on the other hand, the way the SIA causes an opposing update also seems suspicious.
But I think all of her illustrations of how updates based on the SIA can seem suspicious involved infinities. And we already know that loads of things involving infinities can seem counterintuitive or suspicious. So it seems to me like this isn’t much reason to feel that SIA in particular can cause suspicious updates. In other words, it seems like maybe the “active ingredient” causing the suspiciousness in the examples she gives is infinity, not SIA. Whereas the way the SSA leads to the doomsday argument doesn’t have to involve infinity, so there it seems like SSA is itself suspicious.
I’m not sure whether this is a valid or important point, but maybe it is? (I obviously don’t think we should necessarily dismiss things just because they feel “suspicious”, but it could make sense to update a bit away from them for that reason, and, to the extent that that’s true, a difference in the suspiciousness of SSA vs SIA could matter.)
One other thing on this section of the interview: Ajeya and Rob both say that the way the SSA leads to the doomsday argument seems sort-of “suspicious”. Ajeya then says that, on the other hand, the way the SIA causes an opposing update also seems suspicious.
But I think all of her illustrations of how updates based on the SIA can seem suspicious involved infinities. And we already know that loads of things involving infinities can seem counterintuitive or suspicious. So it seems to me like this isn’t much reason to feel that SIA in particular can cause suspicious updates. In other words, it seems like maybe the “active ingredient” causing the suspiciousness in the examples she gives is infinity, not SIA. Whereas the way the SSA leads to the doomsday argument doesn’t have to involve infinity, so there it seems like SSA is itself suspicious.
I’m not sure whether this is a valid or important point, but maybe it is? (I obviously don’t think we should necessarily dismiss things just because they feel “suspicious”, but it could make sense to update a bit away from them for that reason, and, to the extent that that’s true, a difference in the suspiciousness of SSA vs SIA could matter.)