Changes

Jump to: navigation, search

Timeline of decision theory

24 bytes added, 17:15, 22 October 2017
Full timeline
| 1969 || || || [[wikipedia:Newcomb's paradox|Newcomb's problem]] is discussed by [[wikipedia:Robert Nozick|Robert Nozick]].
|-
| 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 [[wikipedia:Eggs Benedict|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" />
|-
| 1985 || || || The idea of [[wikipedia:Superrationality|superrationality]] is introduced by [[wikipedia:Douglas Hofstadter|Douglas Hofstadter]] in his ''[[wikipedia:Metamagical Themas|Metamagical Themas]]''.

Navigation menu