Upon reflection, it was probably a mistake for me to write this phrased as a story/problem/thought experiment. I should probably have just written a shorter post titled something like “Newcomb’s problem provides no (interesting, non-trivial) evidence against using causal decision theory.” I had some fun writing this, though, and (mistakenly?) hoped that people would have fun reading it.
I think I disagree somewhat that “PNP references the strategy for NP”. I think many (most?) LW people have decided they are “the type of person who one-boxes in NP”, and believe that says something positive about them in their actual life. This post is an attempt to push back on that.
It seems from your comment that you think of “What I, Vladimir Nesov, would do in a thought experiment” as different from what you would actually do in real life. (eg, when you say “the problem statement is very confusing on this point.”). I think of both as being much more closely tied.
Possibly the confusion comes from the difference between what you-VN-would-actually-do and what you think is correct/optimal/rational behavior? Like, in a thought experiment, you don’t actually try to imagine or predict what real-you would do, you just wonder what optimal behavior/strategy is? In that case, I agree that this is a confusing problem statement.
Upon reflection, it was probably a mistake for me to write this phrased as a story/problem/thought experiment. I should probably have just written a shorter post titled something like “Newcomb’s problem provides no (interesting, non-trivial) evidence against using causal decision theory.” I had some fun writing this, though, and (mistakenly?) hoped that people would have fun reading it.
I think I disagree somewhat that “PNP references the strategy for NP”. I think many (most?) LW people have decided they are “the type of person who one-boxes in NP”, and believe that says something positive about them in their actual life. This post is an attempt to push back on that.
It seems from your comment that you think of “What I, Vladimir Nesov, would do in a thought experiment” as different from what you would actually do in real life. (eg, when you say “the problem statement is very confusing on this point.”). I think of both as being much more closely tied.
Possibly the confusion comes from the difference between what you-VN-would-actually-do and what you think is correct/optimal/rational behavior? Like, in a thought experiment, you don’t actually try to imagine or predict what real-you would do, you just wonder what optimal behavior/strategy is? In that case, I agree that this is a confusing problem statement.