The problem itself, considered out of context, is hopelessly confused, there is too much room left for its clearer reformulation. For example, I have multiple discordant ideas on how to interpret “quite confident that only a psychopath would press such a button”. One option is some Source of Magic that designates pressers of such buttons as inherently “psychopaths” for the purposes of consequences of pressing such buttons, regardless of their preferences about pressing such buttons, in the way Newcomb’s Problem deals with two-boxers.
This raises a concern about all other people of the world, are they all being so designated based on their behavior upon counterfactually being placed in this situation, for the purposes of consequences of pressing the button? If so, pressing the button affects all those who would press the button, in addition to those originally designated “psychopaths”. If not, pressing the button only affects those originally designated “psychopaths”, plus the presser. Or does the Source of Magic clear those who wouldn’t press the button of the label “psychopath” even if originally they would be so designated? For the CDT vs. non-CDT distinction, is the Source of Magic doing the designation of “psychopaths” in advance, based on predictions of everyone’s counterfactual behavior, or after the button is pressed in actuality? Many, many options.
Another option is to interpret it as actually meaning “quite confident that only a psychopath would prefer to press such a button, if it exempted them and those they care about specifically, and there were no Source of Magic shenanigans redefining the meaning of words as applied to all other people of the world for the purposes of this thought experiment”. In that case, the potential presser can resolve the question of whether they are a “psychopath” by looking at their preference, and act accordingly. This is a more straightforward less interesting option.
Logical Decision Theories (TDT, FDT, and UDT)
I think this post is useful for placing these. Basically, FDT is about controlling things from multiple points of intervention, UDT about intervention in all epistemic counterfactuals of the same agent. None of these directly concern acausal coordination with other agents, which is covered in Cooperation in PD. FDT is useful when doing acausal coordination, because the coordinating algorithm needs to control all members of the coordinated coalition, so it acts through multiple points of intervention (I described the connection in a reply to your other post). But if acausal coordination is not for the purposes of decision making, then FDT is not relevant to what’s going on.
That’s a very interesting and insightful dissection of the problem. Do you think there might be a problem in the post that I copied the thought experiment from (which said that CDT presses, and EDT doesn’t), or did I make a mistake of taking it out of context?
There, it’s related to Smoking Lesion, which has a tradition of interpreting it that suggests how to go about interpreting “only a psychopath would press such a button” as well. But that tradition is also convoluted (see “tickle defense”; it might be possible to contort this into an argument that EDT recommends pressing the button in Psychopath Button, not sure).
The problem itself, considered out of context, is hopelessly confused, there is too much room left for its clearer reformulation. For example, I have multiple discordant ideas on how to interpret “quite confident that only a psychopath would press such a button”. One option is some Source of Magic that designates pressers of such buttons as inherently “psychopaths” for the purposes of consequences of pressing such buttons, regardless of their preferences about pressing such buttons, in the way Newcomb’s Problem deals with two-boxers.
This raises a concern about all other people of the world, are they all being so designated based on their behavior upon counterfactually being placed in this situation, for the purposes of consequences of pressing the button? If so, pressing the button affects all those who would press the button, in addition to those originally designated “psychopaths”. If not, pressing the button only affects those originally designated “psychopaths”, plus the presser. Or does the Source of Magic clear those who wouldn’t press the button of the label “psychopath” even if originally they would be so designated? For the CDT vs. non-CDT distinction, is the Source of Magic doing the designation of “psychopaths” in advance, based on predictions of everyone’s counterfactual behavior, or after the button is pressed in actuality? Many, many options.
Another option is to interpret it as actually meaning “quite confident that only a psychopath would prefer to press such a button, if it exempted them and those they care about specifically, and there were no Source of Magic shenanigans redefining the meaning of words as applied to all other people of the world for the purposes of this thought experiment”. In that case, the potential presser can resolve the question of whether they are a “psychopath” by looking at their preference, and act accordingly. This is a more straightforward less interesting option.
I think this post is useful for placing these. Basically, FDT is about controlling things from multiple points of intervention, UDT about intervention in all epistemic counterfactuals of the same agent. None of these directly concern acausal coordination with other agents, which is covered in Cooperation in PD. FDT is useful when doing acausal coordination, because the coordinating algorithm needs to control all members of the coordinated coalition, so it acts through multiple points of intervention (I described the connection in a reply to your other post). But if acausal coordination is not for the purposes of decision making, then FDT is not relevant to what’s going on.
That’s a very interesting and insightful dissection of the problem. Do you think there might be a problem in the post that I copied the thought experiment from (which said that CDT presses, and EDT doesn’t), or did I make a mistake of taking it out of context?
The context seems to be
A Egan (2007) Some Counterexamples to Causal Decision Theory
There, it’s related to Smoking Lesion, which has a tradition of interpreting it that suggests how to go about interpreting “only a psychopath would press such a button” as well. But that tradition is also convoluted (see “tickle defense”; it might be possible to contort this into an argument that EDT recommends pressing the button in Psychopath Button, not sure).