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    Rationality is temporally indexed: an agent facing an inf... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→It is rational for an atheist or agnostic who initially follows a mixed strategy (e.g., tossing a fair coin to decide whether to wager for God) to repeat that mixed strategy indefinitely after each tails result, because with probability 1 the coin will eventually land heads and the agent will wager for God.

    Rationality is temporally indexed: an agent facing an infinite sequence of deferred decisions cannot treat each iteration as decision-theoretically equivalent to the first.

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    Reasons For

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    • 1.Agents face changing constraints (fatigue, resources, changed circumstances) across iterations, making earlier and later decisions objectively dissimilar.
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    • 2.Psychological present bias is rational when future decision-making capacity degrades, justifying prioritization of earlier decisions.
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    • 3.Infinite sequences create path-dependency: earlier choices constrain later options, so treating iterations as equivalent ignores causal structure.
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    Reasons Against

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    • 1.If rationality depends on temporal indexing, then rational principles are context-relative rather than universal, undermining explanatory power.
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    • 2.An idealized rational agent with stable preferences and unlimited capacity should apply identical decision criteria across equivalent decision nodes.
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    • 3.Temporal indexing risks circular reasoning: assuming non-equivalence to justify non-equivalent treatment, rather than deriving it from first principles.
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    Truth & Knowledge1 linkedNatural Theology1 linked

    Related

    Agents face changing constraints (fatigue, resources, changed circumstances) acr...An idealized rational agent with stable preferences and unlimited capacity shoul...If rationality depends on temporal indexing, then rational principles are contex...Infinite sequences create path-dependency: earlier choices constrain later optio...
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    It is rational for an atheist or agnostic who initially follows a mixed strategy...Psychological present bias is rational when future decision-making capacity degr...Temporal indexing risks circular reasoning: assuming non-equivalence to justify ...

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