Sorry—I guess I wasn’t clear enough. I meant that there are two human players and two (possibly non-human) flawless predictors.
So in other words, it’s almost like there are two totally independent instances of Newcomb’s game, except that the predictor from game A fills the boxes in the game B and vice versa.
Yes, you can consider a two-player game as a one-player game with the second player an opaque part of environment. In two-player games, ambient control is more apparent than in one-player games, but it’s also essential in Newcomb problem, which is why you make the analogy.
This needs to be spelled out more. Do you mean that if A takes both boxes, B gets $1,000, and if A takes one box, B gets $1,000,000? Why is this a dilemma at all? What you do has no effect on the money you get.
I don’t know how to format a table, but here is what I want the game to be:
A-action B-action A-winnings B-winnings
2-box 2-box $1 $1
2-box 1-box $1001 $0
1-box 2-box $0 $1001
1-box 1-box $1000 $1000
Now compare this with Newcomb’s game:
A-action Prediction A-winnings
2-box 2-box $1
2-box 1-box $1001
1-box 2-box $0
1-box 1-box $1000
Now, if the “Prediction” in the second table is actually a flawless prediction of a different player’s action then we obtain the first three columns of the first table.
Hopefully the rest is clear, and please forgive the triviality of this observation.
Sorry—I guess I wasn’t clear enough. I meant that there are two human players and two (possibly non-human) flawless predictors.
So in other words, it’s almost like there are two totally independent instances of Newcomb’s game, except that the predictor from game A fills the boxes in the game B and vice versa.
Yes, you can consider a two-player game as a one-player game with the second player an opaque part of environment. In two-player games, ambient control is more apparent than in one-player games, but it’s also essential in Newcomb problem, which is why you make the analogy.
This needs to be spelled out more. Do you mean that if A takes both boxes, B gets $1,000, and if A takes one box, B gets $1,000,000? Why is this a dilemma at all? What you do has no effect on the money you get.
I don’t know how to format a table, but here is what I want the game to be:
A-action B-action A-winnings B-winnings
2-box 2-box $1 $1
2-box 1-box $1001 $0
1-box 2-box $0 $1001
1-box 1-box $1000 $1000
Now compare this with Newcomb’s game:
A-action Prediction A-winnings
2-box 2-box $1
2-box 1-box $1001
1-box 2-box $0
1-box 1-box $1000
Now, if the “Prediction” in the second table is actually a flawless prediction of a different player’s action then we obtain the first three columns of the first table.
Hopefully the rest is clear, and please forgive the triviality of this observation.