Update: Both Eva and I seem to agree that it seems somewhat unfair to compare CDT and EDT where we give the EDT agent the option of blindfolding themselves without giving CDT the option to engage in similar manipulations (Eva suggests an explosive collar).
I incorrectly asserted that we were allowing EDT to additionally pre-commit to a particular strategy, but EDT doesn’t need to pre-commit here, or in Newcomb’s problem, because it treats current decisions as evidence about past predictions vs. CDT which holds these predictions constant.
Original comment: Hmm… I don’t think you can compare CDT and EDT by creating a scenario where EDT can pre-commit (and pre-blind itself to information) and forbidding CDT from doing the same. Seems that if you do that then CDT and EDT would pre-commit to reasoning like the FDT agent
EDT isn’t precommiting to anything here, she does her opinion of the best choice at every step. That’s still a valid complaint that it’s unfair to give her a blindfold though. If CDT found out about the rules of the game before the hosts made their predictions, he’d make himself an explosive collar that he can’t take off and that automatically kills him unless he chooses the box with the least money, and get the same outcome as FDT, and EDT would do that as well. For the blindfold strategy EDT only needs to learn the rules before she sees whats in the boxes, and the technology required is much easier. I mostly wrote it this way because I think it’s a much more interesting way to get stronger behaviour than the commitment-collar trick.
Wasn’t EDT pre-committing to the strategy of weighing the left two boxes and the right two boxes and then deciding to randomly pick one of the heavier pair? Or are you saying that a blinded EDT automatically adopts this strategy without precommitment?
This comment was edited to fix swapping “lighter” and “heavier”.
Not whichever is lighter, one of whichever pair is heavier. Yes, I claim an EDT agent upon learning the rules, if they have a way to blind themself but not to force a commitment, will do this plan. They need to maximise the amount of incentive that the hosts have to put money in boxes, but to whatever extent they actually observe the money in boxes they will then expect to get the best outcome by making the best choice given their information. The only middle ground I could find is pairing the boxes, and picking one from the heavier pair. I’d be very happy to learn if I was wrong and there’s a better plan or if this doesn’t work for some reason.
Oh, silly me. Of course, EDT doesn’t need to pre-commit b/c EDT just does whatever gives the highest expected value without caring about whether there’s a causal impact or not. So when given the decision of whether to weigh the boxes in pairs vs. the decision of weighing them all and picking the heaviest, it’s happy to weigh in pairs because that increases how much money it expects to win.
Update: Both Eva and I seem to agree that it seems somewhat unfair to compare CDT and EDT where we give the EDT agent the option of blindfolding themselves without giving CDT the option to engage in similar manipulations (Eva suggests an explosive collar).
I incorrectly asserted that we were allowing EDT to additionally pre-commit to a particular strategy, but EDT doesn’t need to pre-commit here, or in Newcomb’s problem, because it treats current decisions as evidence about past predictions vs. CDT which holds these predictions constant.
Original comment: Hmm… I don’t think you can compare CDT and EDT by creating a scenario where EDT can pre-commit (and pre-blind itself to information) and forbidding CDT from doing the same. Seems that if you do that then CDT and EDT would pre-commit to reasoning like the FDT agent
EDT isn’t precommiting to anything here, she does her opinion of the best choice at every step. That’s still a valid complaint that it’s unfair to give her a blindfold though. If CDT found out about the rules of the game before the hosts made their predictions, he’d make himself an explosive collar that he can’t take off and that automatically kills him unless he chooses the box with the least money, and get the same outcome as FDT, and EDT would do that as well. For the blindfold strategy EDT only needs to learn the rules before she sees whats in the boxes, and the technology required is much easier. I mostly wrote it this way because I think it’s a much more interesting way to get stronger behaviour than the commitment-collar trick.
Wasn’t EDT pre-committing to the strategy of weighing the left two boxes and the right two boxes and then deciding to randomly pick one of the heavier pair? Or are you saying that a blinded EDT automatically adopts this strategy without precommitment?
This comment was edited to fix swapping “lighter” and “heavier”.
Not whichever is lighter, one of whichever pair is heavier. Yes, I claim an EDT agent upon learning the rules, if they have a way to blind themself but not to force a commitment, will do this plan. They need to maximise the amount of incentive that the hosts have to put money in boxes, but to whatever extent they actually observe the money in boxes they will then expect to get the best outcome by making the best choice given their information. The only middle ground I could find is pairing the boxes, and picking one from the heavier pair. I’d be very happy to learn if I was wrong and there’s a better plan or if this doesn’t work for some reason.
Oh, silly me. Of course, EDT doesn’t need to pre-commit b/c EDT just does whatever gives the highest expected value without caring about whether there’s a causal impact or not. So when given the decision of whether to weigh the boxes in pairs vs. the decision of weighing them all and picking the heaviest, it’s happy to weigh in pairs because that increases how much money it expects to win.