With Newcomb’s problem one properly one-boxes. The unknown state of the box is entagled with your decision, so by one-boxing you’re acausally affecting the likelihood the non-transparent box has 1.000.000.
Hence the reference to Transparent Newcomb’s*, in which the money is visible and yet, by some decision theories, it is still irrational to two-box. (Similar reasoning pertains to certain time-travel scenarios—is it rational to try and avoid driving if you know you will die in a car crash?)
*The reference:
For others, it’s easy because you take both boxes in the variant of Newcomb where the boxes are transparent and you can see the million dollars; just as you would know that you had the million dollars no matter what, in this case you know that you exist no matter what.
I’ve since decided that one-boxing in Transparent Newcomb is the correct decision—because being the sort of agent that one-boxes is to be the sort of agent that gets given more frequently a filled first box (I think I only fully realized this after reading Eliezer’s paper on TDT, which I hadn’t at the time of this thread).
So the individual “losing” decision is actually part of a decision theory which is winning *overall”. And is therefore the correct decision no matter how counterintuitive.
Mind you, as a practical matter, I think it’s significantly harder for a human to choose to one-box in the case of Transparent Newcomb. I don’t know if I could manage it if I was actually presented with the situation, though I don’t think I’d have a problem with the case of classical Newcomb.
Hence the reference to Transparent Newcomb’s*, in which the money is visible and yet, by some decision theories, it is still irrational to two-box. (Similar reasoning pertains to certain time-travel scenarios—is it rational to try and avoid driving if you know you will die in a car crash?)
*The reference:
EDIT: whoops, ninja’d. By almost two years.
Do you still two-box in this situation?
I’ve since decided that one-boxing in Transparent Newcomb is the correct decision—because being the sort of agent that one-boxes is to be the sort of agent that gets given more frequently a filled first box (I think I only fully realized this after reading Eliezer’s paper on TDT, which I hadn’t at the time of this thread).
So the individual “losing” decision is actually part of a decision theory which is winning *overall”. And is therefore the correct decision no matter how counterintuitive.
Mind you, as a practical matter, I think it’s significantly harder for a human to choose to one-box in the case of Transparent Newcomb. I don’t know if I could manage it if I was actually presented with the situation, though I don’t think I’d have a problem with the case of classical Newcomb.