Anthropic decision theory

TL;DR

This paper introduces Anthropic Decision Theory (ADT), a framework for resolving anthropic problems by focusing on decision-making principles rather than probabilities, highlighting the importance of agents' attitudes towards each other.

Contribution

It develops a novel decision-theoretic approach to anthropic problems, providing a systematic way to determine rational actions without relying solely on probability calculations.

Findings

ADT successfully resolves the Presumptuous Philosopher paradox.

ADT clarifies the Doomsday problem and its implications.

Agent attitudes significantly influence decision outcomes.

Abstract

This paper sets out to resolve how agents ought to act in the Sleeping Beauty problem and various related anthropic (self-locating belief) problems, not through the calculation of anthropic probabilities, but through finding the correct decision to make. It creates an anthropic decision theory (ADT) that decides these problems from a small set of principles. By doing so, it demonstrates that the attitude of agents with regards to each other (selfish or altruistic) changes the decisions they reach, and that it is very important to take this into account. To illustrate ADT, it is then applied to two major anthropic problems and paradoxes, the Presumptuous Philosopher and Doomsday problems, thus resolving some issues about the probability of human extinction.