## The Last Temptation of Christ * Author: u/erwgv3g34 * * URL: http://squid314.livejournal.com/324957.html * Score: 31 * Created: 2013-12-31T05:43:53 ### Post: [Link to content](http://squid314.livejournal.com/324957.html) ### Comments: > **u/BT_Uytya** [+3] *The Laundry* (6 hours later) > > Excellent story. > > It's a bit hard to swallow, but it seems that if you are TDT agent, and (maybe, mistakenly) believe that you a person who is going to accomplish something very important, you should disregard any doubts and act on assumptions that you are sane. >> **u/None** [+3] (6 hours later) >> >> >It's a bit hard to swallow, but it seems that if you are TDT agent, and (maybe, mistakenly) believe that you a person who is going to accomplish something very important, you should disregard any doubts and act on assumptions that you are sane. >> >> I don't see how the old maxim to *Believe in the you who believes in yourself* actually applies here. >> >> The basic reasoning problem here is to consider hypothesis P(Am Jesus | Evidence). Note that your belief that you're Jesus is not *a priori* evidence of psychosis, except insofar as psychotics are likely to believe they're Jesus Christ. P(Believe I'm Jesus | Psychotic) * P(Psychotic) = P(Psychotic | Believe I'm Jesus) * P(Believe I'm Jesus). >> >> So actually, we want P(Psychotic | Believe I'm Jesus) / P(Believe in Jesus | Psychotic). If the former is 99,999/100,000, then what's the latter? What fraction of psychotics believe they're Jesus? We could thus calculate a low probability of being psychotic and have to evaluate the Jesus Hypothesis at the object level, consider P(I'm Jesus | Available Evidence), which would then involve considering the mountain and the Devil *in favor*, considering the quality of my knowledge of what constitutes being Jesus (the strongest argument available for my being Jesus is that I *don't know his story because I'm still living it*), and considering the medication as evidence against. >>> **u/BT_Uytya** [+4] *The Laundry* (7 hours later) >>> >>> I'm not sure I understand what are you trying to show. My argument was more about expected utility: if you decide for all people who believe they are Jesus, *including real Jesus*, then you should continue saving mankind instead of taking medication. >>> >>> (assuming that taking medication is harmful to real Jesus and that there is a non-negligible probability of Jesus existing. I don't believe in both of them, but willing to assume those for the sake of argument). >>>> **u/None** [+1] (8 hours later) >>>> >>>> I was trying to show how you would decide the questions of "Am I sane?" and "Am I Jesus?". I don't think TDT really comes into it, since it can be decided whether or not you actually are Jesus: you don't have to decide for a whole class of maybe-Jesus-guys, just yourself. >>>> >>>> >My argument was more about expected utility: if you decide for all people who believe they are Jesus, including real Jesus, then you should continue saving mankind instead of taking medication. >>>> >>>> Problem being that 99.999% of the time, your actions as a psychotic maniac are actually harmful to others and don't save mankind at all. >>>>> **u/FeepingCreature** [+2] *GCV Literally The Entire Culture* (8 hours later) >>>>> >>>>> > you don't have to decide for a whole class of maybe-Jesus-guys, just yourself. >>>>> >>>>> The point is that the rational decision theory of 100,000 insane guys and Jesus, given identical (deluded) inputs, must necessarily come to the same conclusion. That's what makes them a TDT set - the devil essentially acts as Omega in this story, equalizing available inputs. >>>>> >>>>> > (the strongest argument available for my being Jesus is that I don't know his story because I'm still living it) >>>>> >>>>> Though that's a strong point. I wonder what the Devil's rebuttal would have been. Then again, is "not remembering" really the best evidence? >>>>>> **u/None** [+3] (8 hours later) >>>>>> >>>>>> > Then again, is "not remembering" really the best evidence? >>>>>> >>>>>> There's a difference between "not remembering" in the sense of having forgotten and "not remembering" in the sense of events still being in your subjective future. Forgettings still leave a causal "hole" in your other memories, a missing factor in events you can remember. Future events simply haven't had any causal influence on you yet. >>>>>> >>>>>> >Though that's a strong point. I wonder what the Devil's rebuttal would have been. >>>>>> >>>>>> It would have been fun to see our Maybe!Jesus ask the Maybe!Devil, "Do *you* know how I will have handled this temptation?" The Devil, if we say he's our Omega figure, then has to maintain a very *careful* informational ambiguity, because we've put *him* on the spot of acting timelessly. If he doesn't act timelessly in this situation, he'll reveal whether we're Jesus or not. >>>>>> **u/None** [+1] (8 hours later) >>>>>> >>>>>> [deleted] >>>>>>> **u/FeepingCreature** [+1] *GCV Literally The Entire Culture* (8 hours later) >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Why, are you having input equivalent to Jesus? That's a warning sign, if so. :) >>>>>>>> **u/None** [+2] (8 hours later) >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Not in the slightest. Unless, of course, Jesus had inputs equivalent to me and didn't get *my* life right because *he* was insane. >>> **u/FeepingCreature** [+3] *GCV Literally The Entire Culture* (8 hours later) >>> >>> I think his point was "Proceed under the assumption that you're Jesus", because if you are, you can bring salvation to all mankind, but if you're just a psychiatric patient, pretty much the worst thing you can do is kill yourself. 1 death * 100,000 psychatric patients < salvation of all mankind; thus, the TDT set of {jesus, 100,000 insane people} acts as if it's Jesus. Assuming, of course, that salvation of mankind is on the table with a reasonably high p. > **u/FeepingCreature** [+1] *GCV Literally The Entire Culture* (8 hours later) > > Of course, the real lesson is that if you start a religion based on faith and blind belief, instead of doubt and challenging your beliefs against reality, {you, 100,000 psychiatric patients} totally have it coming. ---