LESSWRONG
LW

Wikitags

Hyperstitions

Edited by Morphism last updated 6th Dec 2024

A hyperstition is a self-fulfilling belief.

From Give Up Seventy Percent of the Way Through the Hyperstitious Slur Cascade by Scott Alexander:

A hyperstition is a belief which becomes true if people believe it’s true. For example, “Dogecoin is a great short-term investment and you need to buy it right now!” is true if everyone believes it is true; lots of people will buy Dogecoin and it will go way up. “The bank is collapsing and you need to get your money out right away” is likewise true; if everyone believes it, there will be a run on the bank.

The word "hyperstition" can either apply to a collective hyperstition, like the above, or personal hyperstition, like "This pill will relieve my pain".

A hyperstition that is a prediction is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In doxastic modal logic, the statement "P is a hyperstition" is written as □P→P. Modal reasoners that satisfy Löb's Theorem believe all personal hyperstitions. This can cause some problems for modal embedded agents. Löbian cooperation works by making mutual cooperation a collective hyperstition.

Subscribe
1
Subscribe
1
Discussion0
Discussion0
Posts tagged Hyperstitions
28Unbendable Arm as Test Case for Religious Belief
Ivan Vendrov
5mo
39
364The Parable of Predict-O-Matic
Ω
abramdemski
6y
Ω
43
151Self-fulfilling correlations
PhilGoetz
15y
50
88Conditional Prediction with Zero-Sum Training Solves Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
Ω
Rubi J. Hudson, Johannes Treutlein
2y
Ω
13
38Fifty Shades of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
PhilGoetz
11y
87
33An example of self-fulfilling spurious proofs in UDT
cousin_it
13y
43
14Self-Fulfilling Prophecies Aren't Always About Self-Awareness
Ω
John_Maxwell
6y
Ω
7
14Omega and self-fulfilling prophecies
Richard_Kennaway
14y
19
10When to join a respectability cascade
B Jacobs
1y
1
9The Way You Go Depends A Good Deal On Where You Want To Get: FEP minimizes surprise about actions using preferences about the future as *evidence*
Christopher King
4mo
5
Add Posts