Nozick’s original problem stated that the Predictor was “almost always” right.
That’s not the “original problem”, that’s just the fleshed-out introduction to “Newcomb’s Problem and Two Principles of Choice” where he talks about aliens and other stuff that has about as much to do with Newcomb as prisoners have to do with the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Then after outlining some common intuitive answers, he goes on a mathematical tangent and later returns to the question of what one should do in Newcomb with this paragraph:
Now, at last, to return to Newcomb’s example of the predictor. If one believes, for this case, that there is backwards causality, that your choice causes the money to be there or not, that it causes him to have made the prediction that he made, then there is no problem. One takes only what is in the second box. Or if one believes that the way the predictor works is by looking into the future; he, in some sense, sees what you are doing, and hence is no more likely to be wrong about what you do than someone else who is standing there at the time and watching you, and would normally see you, say, open only one box, then there is no problem. You take only what is in the second box. But suppose we establish or take as given that there is no backwards causality, that what you actually decide to do does not affect what he did in the past, that what you actually decide to do is not part of the explanation of why he made the prediction he made. So let us agree that the predictor works as follows: He observes you sometime before you are faced with the choice, examines you with complicated apparatus, etc., and then uses his theory to predict on the basis of this state you were in, what choice you would make later when faced with the choice. Your deciding to do as you do is not part of the explanation of why he makes the prediction he does, though your being in a certain state earlier, is part of the explanation of why he makes the prediction he does, and why you decide as you do.
I believe that one should take what is in both boxes. I fear that the considerations I have adduced thus far will not convince those proponents of taking only what is in the second box. Furthermore I suspect that an adequate solution to this problem will go much deeper than I have yet gone or shall go in this paper. So I want to pose one question. I assume that it is clear that in the vaccine example, the person should not be convinced by the probability argument, and should choose the dominant action. I assume also that it is clear that in the case of the two brothers, the brother should not be convinced by the probability argument offered. The question I should like to put to proponents of taking only what is in the second box in Newcomb’s example (and hence not performing the dominant action) is: what is the difference between Newcomb’s example and the other two examples which make the difference between not following the dominance principle, and following it?
That’s not the “original problem”, that’s just the fleshed-out introduction to “Newcomb’s Problem and Two Principles of Choice” where he talks about aliens and other stuff that has about as much to do with Newcomb as prisoners have to do with the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Then after outlining some common intuitive answers, he goes on a mathematical tangent and later returns to the question of what one should do in Newcomb with this paragraph:
And yes, I think I can agree with him on this.