I would note that the creation of numerous simulations of HoH-type periods doesn’t reduce the total impact of the actual HoH folk
Agree that it might well be that even though one has a very low credence in HoH, one should still act in the same way. (e.g. because if one is not at HoH, one is a sim, and your actions don’t have much impact).
The sim-arg could still cause you to change your actions, though. It’s somewhat plausible to me, for example, that the chance of being a sim if you’re at the very most momentous time is 1000x higher than the chance of being a sim if you’re at the 20th most hingey time, but the most hingey time is not 1000x more hingey than the 20th most hingey time. In which case the hypothesis that you’re at the 20th most hingey time has a greater relative importance than it had before.
Your argument seems to combine SSA style anthropic reasoning with CDT. I believe this is a questionable combination as it gives different answers from an ex-ante rational policy or from updateless decision theory (see e.g. https://www.umsu.de/papers/driver-2011.pdf). The combination is probably also dutch-bookable.
Consider the different hingeynesses of times as the different possible worlds and your different real or simulated versions as your possible locations in that world. Say both worlds are equally likely a priori and there is one real version of you in both worlds, but the hingiest one also has 1000 subjectively indistinguishable simulations (which don’t have an impact). Then SSA tells you that you are much less likely a real person in the hingiest time than you are to be a real person in the 20th hingiest time. Using these probabilities to calculate your CDT-EV, you conclude that the effects of your actions on the 20th most hingiest time dominate.
Alternatively, you could combine CDT with SIA. Under SIA, being a real person in either time is equally likely. Or you could combine the SSA probabilities with EDT. EDT would recommend acting as if you were controlling all simulations and the real person at once, no matter whether you are in the simulation or not. In either case, you would conclude that you should do what is best for the hingiest time (given that they are equally likely a priori).
Unlike the SSA+CDT approach, either of these latter approaches would (in this case) yield the actions recommended by someone coordinating everyone’s actions ex ante.
Is this slightly off? The factor that goes into the expected impact is the chance of being a non-sim (not the chance of being a sim), so for the argument to make sense, you might wish to replace “the chance of being a sim [...] is 1000x higher than...” by “the chance of being a non-sim is just 1/1000 of...”?
Agree that it might well be that even though one has a very low credence in HoH, one should still act in the same way. (e.g. because if one is not at HoH, one is a sim, and your actions don’t have much impact).
The sim-arg could still cause you to change your actions, though. It’s somewhat plausible to me, for example, that the chance of being a sim if you’re at the very most momentous time is 1000x higher than the chance of being a sim if you’re at the 20th most hingey time, but the most hingey time is not 1000x more hingey than the 20th most hingey time. In which case the hypothesis that you’re at the 20th most hingey time has a greater relative importance than it had before.
Your argument seems to combine SSA style anthropic reasoning with CDT. I believe this is a questionable combination as it gives different answers from an ex-ante rational policy or from updateless decision theory (see e.g. https://www.umsu.de/papers/driver-2011.pdf). The combination is probably also dutch-bookable.
Consider the different hingeynesses of times as the different possible worlds and your different real or simulated versions as your possible locations in that world. Say both worlds are equally likely a priori and there is one real version of you in both worlds, but the hingiest one also has 1000 subjectively indistinguishable simulations (which don’t have an impact). Then SSA tells you that you are much less likely a real person in the hingiest time than you are to be a real person in the 20th hingiest time. Using these probabilities to calculate your CDT-EV, you conclude that the effects of your actions on the 20th most hingiest time dominate.
Alternatively, you could combine CDT with SIA. Under SIA, being a real person in either time is equally likely. Or you could combine the SSA probabilities with EDT. EDT would recommend acting as if you were controlling all simulations and the real person at once, no matter whether you are in the simulation or not. In either case, you would conclude that you should do what is best for the hingiest time (given that they are equally likely a priori).
Unlike the SSA+CDT approach, either of these latter approaches would (in this case) yield the actions recommended by someone coordinating everyone’s actions ex ante.
Is this slightly off? The factor that goes into the expected impact is the chance of being a non-sim (not the chance of being a sim), so for the argument to make sense, you might wish to replace “the chance of being a sim [...] is 1000x higher than...” by “the chance of being a non-sim is just 1/1000 of...”?