[The following question might just be confused, might not be important, and will likely be poorly phrased/āexplained.]
In your recent 80k appearance, you and Rob both say that the way the self-sampling assumption (SSA) leads to the doomsday argument seems sort-of āsuspiciousā. You then say that, on the other hand, the way the self-indication assumption (SIA) causes an opposing update also seems suspicious.
But I think all of your 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 isnāt much reason to feel that SIA in particular can cause suspicious updates. In other words, it seems like maybe the āactive ingredientā causing the suspiciousness in the examples you give is infinity, not SIA. Whereas the way the SSA leads to the doomsday argument doesnāt have to involve infinity, so there it seems like SSA is itself suspicious.
Does that sound correct to you? Do you think that that make the SIA effectively less suspicious than SSA, and thereby pushes further against the doomsday argument?
(I obviously donāt think we should necessarily dismiss things just because they feel āsuspiciousā. But it could make sense to update a bit away from them for that reason, and, to the extent that thatās true, a difference in the suspiciousness of SSA vs SIA could matter.)
Thanks, Iām glad you found that explanation helpful!
I think I broadly agree with you that SIA is somewhat less āsuspiciousā than SSA, with the small caveat that I think most of the weirdness can be preserved with a finite-but-sufficienty-giant world rather than a literally infinite world.
[The following question might just be confused, might not be important, and will likely be poorly phrased/āexplained.]
In your recent 80k appearance, you and Rob both say that the way the self-sampling assumption (SSA) leads to the doomsday argument seems sort-of āsuspiciousā. You then say that, on the other hand, the way the self-indication assumption (SIA) causes an opposing update also seems suspicious.
But I think all of your 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 isnāt much reason to feel that SIA in particular can cause suspicious updates. In other words, it seems like maybe the āactive ingredientā causing the suspiciousness in the examples you give is infinity, not SIA. Whereas the way the SSA leads to the doomsday argument doesnāt have to involve infinity, so there it seems like SSA is itself suspicious.
Does that sound correct to you? Do you think that that make the SIA effectively less suspicious than SSA, and thereby pushes further against the doomsday argument?
(I obviously donāt think we should necessarily dismiss things just because they feel āsuspiciousā. But it could make sense to update a bit away from them for that reason, and, to the extent that thatās true, a difference in the suspiciousness of SSA vs SIA could matter.)
(Btw, although Iām still not sure I understand SSA and SIA properly, your explanation during the 80k interview caused me to feel like I probably at least understood the gist, for the first time, so thanks for that!)
Thanks, Iām glad you found that explanation helpful!
I think I broadly agree with you that SIA is somewhat less āsuspiciousā than SSA, with the small caveat that I think most of the weirdness can be preserved with a finite-but-sufficienty-giant world rather than a literally infinite world.