No, it doesn’t. The logic of the problem merely predicts that will happen because you are a two-boxer only pretending to be a one-boxer. You still can (and should) choose to one-box
See, this is what I find unusual. You predict that you will one-box and you also predict that this would cause a contradiction with the assumptions of the problem. This is like saying “I predict I will prove that 2=3 at noon tomorrow,” and yet you don’t see the oddness. Again, the fact that a proof exists (of something like “this formulation of newcomb’s problem with transparent boxes is inconsistent”) is as good as the proof itself.
No. Not at all. The only reason we are even having this discussion is because of the highly defective way the human brain usually models choice, among other things inappropriately equating capability to make a certain choice with a material, ill-defined possibility of that choice happening. Those are two entirely different things, even though I’m afraid this all just sounds like nonsense to you.
Not just ability, you’re actually expecting to make that choice
I never said that! I said repeatedly that it doesn’t matter what you you think (inside hypothetical case), only that you one-box. Sure, if you absolutely have to make predictions, and if assuming that Omega will turn out wrong does not change your resolve to one-box that’s one possible way to deal with that problem, but I already said that personally I’m leaning towards thinking that none of that is actually happening, and as long as thinking you are going to fail and two-box doesn’t impede you one-boxing that works, too (as implied above). Or anything else that doesn’t stop you from one-boxing.
So your tentative solution is to break the problem in the same way as ata, by saying “well, what the problem really means is that you see someone who looks just like Omega pose you the problem, but it might be a simulation.” (Note that Omega cannot simulate Omega for this to work, so the problem is genuinely different. If Omega could simulate Omega, it would have no need to simulate you with any uncertainty).
Let’s see if I understand your more general statement—in this formulation of Newcomb’s problem, it would be better if you picked box 1 even when it was empty. Therefore you should do something (anything) so that you will pick box 1 even if it is empty. Am I getting closer to what you think?
So your tentative solution is to break the problem in the same way as ata, by saying “well, what the problem really means is that you see someone who looks just like Omega pose you the problem, but it might be a simulation.”
No, simulation is just one of the possibilities I listed way up-thread:
(e. g. Omega is wrong for once, you are hallucinating, you are a simulation, you exist in the place the truth value of counterfactuals is located, you are a free-floating counterfactual and don’t actually exist, etc)
But it’s not my favored conclusion, because it leads to doing silly things like holding off deciding so you are simulated for a longer time and exist longer, as you suggested. My favored one is the last one, that you don’t exist, at all, not even inside a simulation or a Tegmark IV type of thing. After one-boxing you’d (hypothetically) switch to the Tegmark IV version of course (or Omega just being wrong, nothing differentiating those).
Let’s see if I understand your more general statement—in this formulation of Newcomb’s problem, it would be better if you picked box 1 even when it was empty. Therefore you should do something (anything) so that you will pick box 1 even if it is empty. Am I getting closer to what you think?
I don’t specifically disagree with anything in particular here, but you sound as if you would draw conclusions from that I wouldn’t draw.
Well, the possibilities listed up-thread other than “you don’t exist” make the problem no longer exactly Newcomb’s problem, unless you two-box. So I like your favorite, although I’m probably thinking of a stricter version of “don’t exist” that makes it more nonsensical to talk about “what would you (who don’t exist) do?”
E.g. if carrots didn’t exist, what would the carrots that don’t exist taste like? :D
You don’t expect anything contradictory to actually happen. Because you would one-box no matter what you see, you will never end up seeing an empty box.
See, this is what I find unusual. You predict that you will one-box and you also predict that this would cause a contradiction with the assumptions of the problem. This is like saying “I predict I will prove that 2=3 at noon tomorrow,” and yet you don’t see the oddness. Again, the fact that a proof exists (of something like “this formulation of newcomb’s problem with transparent boxes is inconsistent”) is as good as the proof itself.
No. Not at all. The only reason we are even having this discussion is because of the highly defective way the human brain usually models choice, among other things inappropriately equating capability to make a certain choice with a material, ill-defined possibility of that choice happening. Those are two entirely different things, even though I’m afraid this all just sounds like nonsense to you.
Not just ability, you’re actually expecting to make that choice, which I most certainly associate with calculating a probability.
I never said that! I said repeatedly that it doesn’t matter what you you think (inside hypothetical case), only that you one-box. Sure, if you absolutely have to make predictions, and if assuming that Omega will turn out wrong does not change your resolve to one-box that’s one possible way to deal with that problem, but I already said that personally I’m leaning towards thinking that none of that is actually happening, and as long as thinking you are going to fail and two-box doesn’t impede you one-boxing that works, too (as implied above). Or anything else that doesn’t stop you from one-boxing.
So your tentative solution is to break the problem in the same way as ata, by saying “well, what the problem really means is that you see someone who looks just like Omega pose you the problem, but it might be a simulation.” (Note that Omega cannot simulate Omega for this to work, so the problem is genuinely different. If Omega could simulate Omega, it would have no need to simulate you with any uncertainty).
Let’s see if I understand your more general statement—in this formulation of Newcomb’s problem, it would be better if you picked box 1 even when it was empty. Therefore you should do something (anything) so that you will pick box 1 even if it is empty. Am I getting closer to what you think?
No, simulation is just one of the possibilities I listed way up-thread:
But it’s not my favored conclusion, because it leads to doing silly things like holding off deciding so you are simulated for a longer time and exist longer, as you suggested. My favored one is the last one, that you don’t exist, at all, not even inside a simulation or a Tegmark IV type of thing. After one-boxing you’d (hypothetically) switch to the Tegmark IV version of course (or Omega just being wrong, nothing differentiating those).
I don’t specifically disagree with anything in particular here, but you sound as if you would draw conclusions from that I wouldn’t draw.
Well, the possibilities listed up-thread other than “you don’t exist” make the problem no longer exactly Newcomb’s problem, unless you two-box. So I like your favorite, although I’m probably thinking of a stricter version of “don’t exist” that makes it more nonsensical to talk about “what would you (who don’t exist) do?”
E.g. if carrots didn’t exist, what would the carrots that don’t exist taste like? :D
You don’t expect anything contradictory to actually happen. Because you would one-box no matter what you see, you will never end up seeing an empty box.