Difference between revisions of "Timeline of decision theory"

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| 1969 || || || [[wikipedia:Newcomb's paradox|Newcomb's problem]] is discussed by [[wikipedia:Robert Nozick|Robert Nozick]].
 
| 1969 || || || [[wikipedia:Newcomb's paradox|Newcomb's problem]] is discussed by [[wikipedia:Robert Nozick|Robert Nozick]].
 
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| 1980 || || || {{W|Brian Skyrms}}'s ''Causal Necessity: A Pragmatic Investigation of the Necessity of Laws'' discusses the smoking lesion problem (or a similar problem that becomes called the smoking lesion problem in later publications).<ref>{{cite book |first=Brian |last=Skyrms |title=Causal Necessity: A Pragmatic Investigation of the Necessity of Laws |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1980 |quote=Suppose that the connection between hardening of the arteries and cholesterol intake turned out to be like this: hardening of the arteries is not caused by cholesterol intake like the clogging of a water pipe; rather it is caused by a lesion in the artery wall. In an advanced state these lesions will catch cholesterol from the blood, a fact which has deceived previous researchers about the causal picture. Moreover, imagine that once someone develops the lesion he tends to increase his cholesterol intake. We do not know what mechanism accounts for this effect of the lesion. We do, however, know that the increased cholesterol intake is beneficial; it somehow slows the development of the lesion. Cholesterol intake among those who do not have the lesion appears to have no effect on vascular health. Given this (partly) fanciful account of the etiology of atherosclerosis, what would a rational man who believed the account do when made an offer of Eggs Benedict for breakfast? I say he would accept. He would be a ''fool'' to try to "make it the case that he had not developed the lesion" by curtailing his cholesterol intake.}}</ref>{{rp|128, 129}} Yudkowsky and Soares cite Skyrms for the smoking lesion problem.<ref name="fdt" />
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| 1980 || || || {{W|Brian Skyrms}}'s ''Causal Necessity: A Pragmatic Investigation of the Necessity of Laws'' discusses the smoking lesion problem (or a similar problem that becomes called the smoking lesion problem in later publications).<ref>{{cite book |first=Brian |last=Skyrms |title=Causal Necessity: A Pragmatic Investigation of the Necessity of Laws |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1980 |quote=Suppose that the connection between hardening of the arteries and cholesterol intake turned out to be like this: hardening of the arteries is not caused by cholesterol intake like the clogging of a water pipe; rather it is caused by a lesion in the artery wall. In an advanced state these lesions will catch cholesterol from the blood, a fact which has deceived previous researchers about the causal picture. Moreover, imagine that once someone develops the lesion he tends to increase his cholesterol intake. We do not know what mechanism accounts for this effect of the lesion. We do, however, know that the increased cholesterol intake is beneficial; it somehow slows the development of the lesion. Cholesterol intake among those who do not have the lesion appears to have no effect on vascular health. Given this (partly) fanciful account of the etiology of atherosclerosis, what would a rational man who believed the account do when made an offer of Eggs Benedict for breakfast? I say he would accept. He would be a ''fool'' to try to "make it the case that he had not developed the lesion" by curtailing his cholesterol intake. [&hellip;] Examples could be multiplied. R. A. Fisher once suggested that the correlation between smoking and lung cancer might be due to them both being effects of a common genetic cause. Fisher's hypothesis has not fared well, but if, contrary to evidence, it were true and you knew it to be true, and smoking were consistently pleasurable and not harmful in other ways, you would be foolish to refrain from smoking in order to lower the probability of having smoking-cancer gene. You either have it or not, and you can't influence your genetic makeup by abstinence.}}</ref>{{rp|128&ndash;130}} Yudkowsky and Soares cite Skyrms for the smoking lesion problem.<ref name="fdt" />
 
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| 1985 || || || The idea of [[wikipedia:Superrationality|superrationality]] is introduced by [[wikipedia:Douglas Hofstadter|Douglas Hofstadter]] in his ''[[wikipedia:Metamagical Themas|Metamagical Themas]]''.
 
| 1985 || || || The idea of [[wikipedia:Superrationality|superrationality]] is introduced by [[wikipedia:Douglas Hofstadter|Douglas Hofstadter]] in his ''[[wikipedia:Metamagical Themas|Metamagical Themas]]''.

Revision as of 16:11, 22 October 2017

This is a timeline of decision theory, with a focus on updateless/timeless/acausal decision theories.

Big picture

Time period Development summary More details

Full timeline

Year Month and date Event type Details
1969 Newcomb's problem is discussed by Robert Nozick.
1980 Brian Skyrms's Causal Necessity: A Pragmatic Investigation of the Necessity of Laws discusses the smoking lesion problem (or a similar problem that becomes called the smoking lesion problem in later publications).[1]:128–130 Yudkowsky and Soares cite Skyrms for the smoking lesion problem.[2]
1985 The idea of superrationality is introduced by Douglas Hofstadter in his Metamagical Themas.
1997 The Sleeping Beauty problem is first formally analyzed.
1997 The absent-minded driver problem is introduced (in the same paper as the sleeping beauty?).[3][4]
2002 July 17 Hal Finney, in a mailing list discussion, brings up ideas that according to Wei Dai come "pretty close to some of the ideas behind TDT".[5][6]
2006 May 5 Gary Drescher's Good and Real is published.[7]
2007 The Smoking Lesion problem is introduced by Andy Egan?[8][9]
2007 May 30 Philosopher Kenny Easwaran blogs about his discussions with Joshua Von Korff. Korff has apparently devised a decision-theoretic protocol that one-boxes on Newcomb's problem but smokes in the Smoking Lesion problem. The post does not make clear when Korff came up with his ideas or whether he wrote them up anywhere.[10][11]
2009 February Project Eliezer Yudkowsky starts LessWrong using as seed material his posts on Overcoming Bias.[12] During the following years LessWrong would become the locus of discussion about timeless/updateless decision theory.
2009 March 19 Vladimir Nesov introduces counterfactual mugging.[13][14]
2009 August 20 Gary Drescher proposes Metacircular Decision Theory (MCDT) in a comment on LessWrong.[15]
2010 Timeless decision theory is published in paper form by Eliezer Yudkowsky.[16]
2017 March 18 "Cheating Death in Damascus" by Nate Soares and Ben Levinstein is announced on the Machine Intelligence Research Institute blog.[17][18]
2017 October 13 "Functional Decision Theory: A New Theory of Instrumental Rationality" by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares is posted to the arXiv.[2] The paper is announced on the Machine Intelligence Research Institute blog on October 22.[19]

Meta information on the timeline

How the timeline was built

The initial version of the timeline was written by Issa Rice.

What the timeline is still missing

Timeline update strategy

See also

External links

References

  1. ↑ Skyrms, Brian (1980). Causal Necessity: A Pragmatic Investigation of the Necessity of Laws. Yale University Press. Suppose that the connection between hardening of the arteries and cholesterol intake turned out to be like this: hardening of the arteries is not caused by cholesterol intake like the clogging of a water pipe; rather it is caused by a lesion in the artery wall. In an advanced state these lesions will catch cholesterol from the blood, a fact which has deceived previous researchers about the causal picture. Moreover, imagine that once someone develops the lesion he tends to increase his cholesterol intake. We do not know what mechanism accounts for this effect of the lesion. We do, however, know that the increased cholesterol intake is beneficial; it somehow slows the development of the lesion. Cholesterol intake among those who do not have the lesion appears to have no effect on vascular health. Given this (partly) fanciful account of the etiology of atherosclerosis, what would a rational man who believed the account do when made an offer of Eggs Benedict for breakfast? I say he would accept. He would be a fool to try to "make it the case that he had not developed the lesion" by curtailing his cholesterol intake. […] Examples could be multiplied. R. A. Fisher once suggested that the correlation between smoking and lung cancer might be due to them both being effects of a common genetic cause. Fisher's hypothesis has not fared well, but if, contrary to evidence, it were true and you knew it to be true, and smoking were consistently pleasurable and not harmful in other ways, you would be foolish to refrain from smoking in order to lower the probability of having smoking-cancer gene. You either have it or not, and you can't influence your genetic makeup by abstinence. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Yudkowsky, Eliezer; Soares, Nate. "[1710.05060] Functional Decision Theory: A New Theory of Instrumental Rationality". Retrieved October 22, 2017. Submitted on 13 Oct 2017 
  3. ↑ "The Absent-Minded Driver". LessWrong. September 16, 2009. Retrieved September 10, 2017. 
  4. ↑ "Absent-Minded driver - Lesswrongwiki". LessWrong. Retrieved September 10, 2017. 
  5. ↑ "Wei_Dai comments on Common mistakes people make when thinking about decision theory - Less Wrong". LessWrong. Retrieved September 10, 2017. 
  6. ↑ Finney, Hal (July 17, 2002). "self-sampling assumption is incorrect". Google Groups. Retrieved September 10, 2017. 
  7. ↑ "Good and Real: Demystifying Paradoxes from Physics to Ethics (MIT Press): Gary L. Drescher: 9780262042338: Amazon.com: Books". Retrieved September 10, 2017. 
  8. ↑ "Andy Egan, Some counterexamples to causal decision theory". PhilPapers. Retrieved September 10, 2017. 
  9. ↑ "Smoking lesion - Lesswrongwiki". LessWrong. Retrieved September 10, 2017. 
  10. ↑ "Different Ideas About Newcomb Cases". Thoughts Arguments and Rants. May 30, 2007. Retrieved September 10, 2017. 
  11. ↑ "CarlShulman comments on Counterfactual Mugging". LessWrong. June 21, 2013. Retrieved September 10, 2017. 
  12. ↑ "FAQ - Lesswrongwiki". LessWrong. Retrieved June 1, 2017. 
  13. ↑ Nesov, Vladimir (March 19, 2009). "Counterfactual Mugging". LessWrong. Retrieved September 10, 2017. 
  14. ↑ "Counterfactual mugging - Lesswrongwiki". LessWrong. Retrieved September 10, 2017. 
  15. ↑ "Gary_Drescher comments on Ingredients of Timeless Decision Theory - Less Wrong". LessWrong. Retrieved September 10, 2017. 
  16. ↑ Yudkowsky, Eliezer (2010). "Timeless Decision Theory" (PDF). Retrieved September 10, 2017. 
  17. ↑ Bensinger, Rob (March 18, 2017). "New paper: "Cheating Death in Damascus"". Machine Intelligence Research Institute. Retrieved September 10, 2017. 
  18. ↑ Soares, Nate; Levinstein, Benjamin A. "Cheating Death in Damascus" (PDF). Retrieved September 10, 2017. 
  19. ↑ Matthew Graves (October 22, 2017). "New paper: "Functional Decision Theory" - Machine Intelligence Research Institute". Machine Intelligence Research Institute. Retrieved October 22, 2017. 
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