118. Teddy Seidenfeld | Decision and Statistics

Can getting more information ever make a rational agent worse off, not better, once you factor in real-world costs, group disagreement, and the way inquiry can change the very decision you face?My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy.1. GuestTed Seidenfeld is Herbert A. Simon University Professor of Philosophy and Statistics at Carnegie Mellon University, and his work focuses on decision theory, statistics, and related topics.2. Interview SummarySeidenfeld frames the conversation around a classic decision-theoretic result associated with Jack Good: in a simplified Bayesian/expected-utility setting, if there is an experiment whose possible outcomes would rationally lead you to act differently, then (given a “free” chance to learn) it is instrumentally rational to delay and gather that information, since it has expected value precisely by guiding action. But his main aim is to stress that this is a mathematical theorem with substantive assumptions, and once you relax them the “value of information” conclusion can flip: additional information can, by your current lights, predictably make decision-making worse rather than better.He then walks through several ways those assumptions fail. One route is social: if the “agent” is really a group with multiple probability/utility perspectives, new evidence can surface latent disagreements and turn prior unanimity into polarization, forcing compromises that both parties regard as worse than the pre-inquiry choice, which raises the question of whether inquiry is worth it when it predictably destabilizes collective action. Another route concerns what counts as ‘cost-free’ information: if your utilities include valuing uncertainty (the theater mystery example), information can be costly simply by spoiling an experience. He also emphasizes ‘moral hazard’ and ‘act–state dependence’, where the very act of setting up or pursuing inquiry changes the relevant state of the world (or your future dispositions), so dominance-style reasoning breaks down and the Good-style theorem no longer applies.The discussion later uses Newcomb’s paradox as a case study: Seidenfeld notes that two-boxing looks dominant unless you are prepared to endorse choice-dependent conditional probabilities (the “reverse” conditionals), and he argues that a predictor’s track record by itself does not automatically justify those probabilities. He presses the point with a market/auction thought experiment about selling ownership of the “one-box” outcome, meant to test whether the purported conditionals genuinely guide action. From there he pivots to a deeper worry about agency: too much self-knowledge (for example, knowing you are an expected-utility maximizer with fixed probabilities/utilities) threatens the idea that you face live options at all, and he is skeptical about assigning probabilities to your own acts in a decision problem. He finally situates these tensions historically via Kenneth Arrow and Leonard J. Savage, suggesting that attempts to generalize Bayesian rationality from individuals to cooperative groups (even under a unanimity constraint) run into impossibility-style pressures that leave “compromise” looking unstable unless you relax parts of the Savage framework.3. Interview Chapters00:00 - Introduction00:45 - Is ignorance bliss?11:22 - Cost-free information16:22 - Sample case19:27 - Moral hazard27:20 - Newcomb’s problem38:25 - Dominance argument44:07 - Deliberation and prediction48:32 - Causalist rejoinder50:32 - Variation55:27 - Paying to avoid cost-free information59:19 - Simpson’s paradox1:07:57 - Group decisions1:22:58 - Imprecise preferences1:25:21 - Imprecise credences1:27:52 - Other models1:39:01 - Causal bayesian networks1:43:49 - What does caustion add1:48:57 - Relevance1:51:27 - Backward intervention1:54:02 - Application to groups1:59:27 - Sleeping beauty problem2:10:02 - Thirder argument2:14:12 - Halfer solution2:15:55 - Ambiguity of ‘’now’‘2:18:00 - Betting odds2:26:00 - Value of philosophy2:29:57 - Conclusion This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fric.substack.com/subscribe