Aren’t these rather ducking the point? The situations all seem to be assuming that we ourselves have Omega-level information and resources, in which case why do we care about the money anyway? I’d say the relevant cases are:
3b) Omega uses a scanner, but we don’t know how the scanner works (or we’d be Omega-level entities ourselves).
5) Omega is using one of the above methods, or one we haven’t thought of, but we don’t know which. For all we know he could be reading the answers we gave on this blog post, and is just really good at guessing who will stick by what they say, and who won’t. Unless we actually know the method with sufficient confidence to risk losing the million, we should one-box. ([Edit]: Originally wrote two-box here—I meant to say one-box)
3b) Our ignorance doesn’t change the fact that, if the scanner is in principle repeatable, reality contains a contradiction. Type 3 is just impossible.
5) If I were in this situation, I’d assume a prior over possible Omegas that gave large weight to types 1 and 2, which means I would one-box. My prior is justified because a workable Omega of type 3 or 4 is harder for me to imagine than 1 or 2. Disagree? What would you do as a good Bayesian?
No—it just means it can’t be perfect. A scanner that works 99.9999999% of the time is effectively indistinguishable from a 100% for the purpose of the problem. One that is 100% except in the presence of recursion is completely identical if we can’t construct such a scanner.
My prior is justified because a workable Omega of type 3 or 4 is harder for me to imagine than 1 or 2. Disagree? What would you do as a good Bayesian?
I would one-box, but I’d do so regardless of the method being used, unless I was confident I could bluff Omega (which would generally require Omega-level resources on my part). It’s just that I don’t think the exact implementation Omega uses (or even whether we know the method) actually matter.
Aren’t these rather ducking the point? The situations all seem to be assuming that we ourselves have Omega-level information and resources, in which case why do we care about the money anyway? I’d say the relevant cases are:
3b) Omega uses a scanner, but we don’t know how the scanner works (or we’d be Omega-level entities ourselves).
5) Omega is using one of the above methods, or one we haven’t thought of, but we don’t know which. For all we know he could be reading the answers we gave on this blog post, and is just really good at guessing who will stick by what they say, and who won’t. Unless we actually know the method with sufficient confidence to risk losing the million, we should one-box. ([Edit]: Originally wrote two-box here—I meant to say one-box)
3b) Our ignorance doesn’t change the fact that, if the scanner is in principle repeatable, reality contains a contradiction. Type 3 is just impossible.
5) If I were in this situation, I’d assume a prior over possible Omegas that gave large weight to types 1 and 2, which means I would one-box. My prior is justified because a workable Omega of type 3 or 4 is harder for me to imagine than 1 or 2. Disagree? What would you do as a good Bayesian?
No—it just means it can’t be perfect. A scanner that works 99.9999999% of the time is effectively indistinguishable from a 100% for the purpose of the problem. One that is 100% except in the presence of recursion is completely identical if we can’t construct such a scanner.
I would one-box, but I’d do so regardless of the method being used, unless I was confident I could bluff Omega (which would generally require Omega-level resources on my part). It’s just that I don’t think the exact implementation Omega uses (or even whether we know the method) actually matter.