In arguing for the single box, Yudkowsky has made an assumption that I disagree with: at the very end, he changes the stakes and declares that your choice should still be the same.
My way of looking at it is similar to what Hendrik Boom has said. You have a choice between betting on Omega being right and betting on Omega being wrong.
A = Contents of box A
B = What may be in box B (if it isn’t empty)
A is yours, in the sense that you can take it and do whatever you want with it. One thing you can do with A is pay it for a chance to win B if Omega is right. Your other option is to pay nothing for a chance to win B if Omega is wrong.
Then just make your bet based on what you know about Omega. As stated, we only know his track record over 100 attempts, so use that. Don’t worry about the nature of causality or whether he might be scanning your brain. We don’t know those things.
If you do it that way, you’ll probably find that your answer depends on A and B as well as Omega’s track record.
I’d probably put Omega at around 99%, as Hendrik did. Keeping A at a thousand dollars, I’d one-box if B were a million dollars or if B were something I needed to save my life. But I’d two-box if B were a thousand dollars and one cent.
So I think changing A and B and declaring that your strategy must stay the same is invalid.
In arguing for the single box, Yudkowsky has made an assumption that I disagree with: at the very end, he changes the stakes and declares that your choice should still be the same.
My way of looking at it is similar to what Hendrik Boom has said. You have a choice between betting on Omega being right and betting on Omega being wrong.
A = Contents of box A
B = What may be in box B (if it isn’t empty)
A is yours, in the sense that you can take it and do whatever you want with it. One thing you can do with A is pay it for a chance to win B if Omega is right. Your other option is to pay nothing for a chance to win B if Omega is wrong.
Then just make your bet based on what you know about Omega. As stated, we only know his track record over 100 attempts, so use that. Don’t worry about the nature of causality or whether he might be scanning your brain. We don’t know those things.
If you do it that way, you’ll probably find that your answer depends on A and B as well as Omega’s track record.
I’d probably put Omega at around 99%, as Hendrik did. Keeping A at a thousand dollars, I’d one-box if B were a million dollars or if B were something I needed to save my life. But I’d two-box if B were a thousand dollars and one cent.
So I think changing A and B and declaring that your strategy must stay the same is invalid.