If Omega only puts the million in if it finds a proof fast enough, it is then possible that you will one-box and not get the million.
Yes, it’s possible, and serves you right for trying to be clever. Solving the halting problem isn’t actually hard for a large class of programs, including the usual case for an agent in a typical decision problem (ie. those that in fact do halt quickly enough to make an actual decision about the boxes in less than a day). If you try to deliberately write a very hard to predict program, then of course omega takes away the money in retaliation, just like the other attempts to “trick” omega by acting randomly or looking inside the boxes with xrays.
The problem requires that Omega be always able to figure out what you do. If Omega can only figure out what you can do under a limited set of circumstances, you’ve changed one of the fundamental constraints of the problem.
You seem to be thinking of this as “the only time someone won’t come to a decision fast enough is if they deliberately stall”, which is sort of the reverse of fighting the hypothetical—you’re deciding that an objection can’t apply because the objection applies to an unlikely situation.
Suppose that in order to decide what to do, I simulate Omega in my head as one of the steps of the process? That is not intentionally delaying, but it still could result in halting problem considerations. Or do you just say that Omega doesn’t give me the money if I try to simulate him?
Usually, in the thought experiment, we assume that Omega has enough computation power to simulate the agent, but that the agent does not have enough computation power to compute Omega. We usually further assume that the agent halts and that Omega is a perfect predictor. However, these are expositional simplifications, and none of these assumptions are necessary in order to put the agent into a Newcomblike scenario.
For example, in the game nshepperd is describing (where Omega plays Newcomb’s problem, but only puts the money in the box if it has very high confidence that you will one-box) then, if you try to simulate Omega, you won’t get the money. You’re still welcome to simulate Omega, but while you’re doing that, I’ll be walking away with a million dollars and you’ll be spending lots of money on computing resources.
No one’s saying you can’t, they’re just saying that if you find yourself in a situation where someone is predicting you and rewarding you for obviously acting like they want you to, and you know this, then it behooves you to obviously act like they want you to.
Or to put it another way, consider a game where Omega is only a pretty good predictor who only puts the money in the box if Omega predicts that you one-box unconditionally (e.g. without using a source of randomness) and whose predictions are correct 99% of the time. Omega here doesn’t have any perfect knowledge, and we’re not necessarily assuming that anyone has superpowers, but i’d still onebox.
Or if you want to see a more realistic problem (where the predictor has only human-level accuracy) then check out Hintze’s formulation of Parfit’s Hitchhiker (though be warned, I’m pretty sure he’s wrong about TDT succeeding on this formulation of Parfit’s Hitchhiker. UDT succeeds on this problem, but TDT would fail.)
This is fighting the hypothetical, Omega can say it will only put a million in if it can find a proof of you one boxing quickly enough.
If Omega only puts the million in if it finds a proof fast enough, it is then possible that you will one-box and not get the million.
(And saying “there isn’t any such Omega” may be fighting the hypothetical. Saying there can’t in principle be such an Omega is not.)
Yes, it’s possible, and serves you right for trying to be clever. Solving the halting problem isn’t actually hard for a large class of programs, including the usual case for an agent in a typical decision problem (ie. those that in fact do halt quickly enough to make an actual decision about the boxes in less than a day). If you try to deliberately write a very hard to predict program, then of course omega takes away the money in retaliation, just like the other attempts to “trick” omega by acting randomly or looking inside the boxes with xrays.
The problem requires that Omega be always able to figure out what you do. If Omega can only figure out what you can do under a limited set of circumstances, you’ve changed one of the fundamental constraints of the problem.
You seem to be thinking of this as “the only time someone won’t come to a decision fast enough is if they deliberately stall”, which is sort of the reverse of fighting the hypothetical—you’re deciding that an objection can’t apply because the objection applies to an unlikely situation.
Suppose that in order to decide what to do, I simulate Omega in my head as one of the steps of the process? That is not intentionally delaying, but it still could result in halting problem considerations. Or do you just say that Omega doesn’t give me the money if I try to simulate him?
Usually, in the thought experiment, we assume that Omega has enough computation power to simulate the agent, but that the agent does not have enough computation power to compute Omega. We usually further assume that the agent halts and that Omega is a perfect predictor. However, these are expositional simplifications, and none of these assumptions are necessary in order to put the agent into a Newcomblike scenario.
For example, in the game nshepperd is describing (where Omega plays Newcomb’s problem, but only puts the money in the box if it has very high confidence that you will one-box) then, if you try to simulate Omega, you won’t get the money. You’re still welcome to simulate Omega, but while you’re doing that, I’ll be walking away with a million dollars and you’ll be spending lots of money on computing resources.
No one’s saying you can’t, they’re just saying that if you find yourself in a situation where someone is predicting you and rewarding you for obviously acting like they want you to, and you know this, then it behooves you to obviously act like they want you to.
Or to put it another way, consider a game where Omega is only a pretty good predictor who only puts the money in the box if Omega predicts that you one-box unconditionally (e.g. without using a source of randomness) and whose predictions are correct 99% of the time. Omega here doesn’t have any perfect knowledge, and we’re not necessarily assuming that anyone has superpowers, but i’d still onebox.
Or if you want to see a more realistic problem (where the predictor has only human-level accuracy) then check out Hintze’s formulation of Parfit’s Hitchhiker (though be warned, I’m pretty sure he’s wrong about TDT succeeding on this formulation of Parfit’s Hitchhiker. UDT succeeds on this problem, but TDT would fail.)