In short, my position on Newcomb’s is as follows: Perfect predictors require determinism which means that strictly there’s only one decision that you can make. To talk about choosing between options requires us to construct a counterfactual to compare against. If we construct a counterfactual where you make a different choice and we want it to be temporally consistent then given determinism we have to edit the past. Consistency may force us to also edit Omega’s prediction and hence the money in the box, but all this is fine since it is a counterfactual. CDT’s may deny the need for consistency, but then they’d have to justify ignoring changes in past brain state *despite* the presence of a perfect predictor which may have a way of reading this state.
As far as I’m concerned, the Counterfactual Prisoner’s Dilemma provides the most satisfying argument for taking the Counterfactual Mugging seriously.
In short, my position on Newcomb’s is as follows: Perfect predictors require determinism which means that strictly there’s only one decision that you can make. To talk about choosing between options requires us to construct a counterfactual to compare against. If we construct a counterfactual where you make a different choice and we want it to be temporally consistent then given determinism we have to edit the past. Consistency may force us to also edit Omega’s prediction and hence the money in the box, but all this is fine since it is a counterfactual. CDT’s may deny the need for consistency, but then they’d have to justify ignoring changes in past brain state *despite* the presence of a perfect predictor which may have a way of reading this state.
As far as I’m concerned, the Counterfactual Prisoner’s Dilemma provides the most satisfying argument for taking the Counterfactual Mugging seriously.