Consider this: You have essentially the same set up, and you’re a one-boxer, so you walk up and take your million dollars out of box B.
And then Omega comes back and says, “Oh, by the way, want to open Box A too?”
And you say, “Um. Okay?” And open Box A, and get a thousand dollars. Or not. Doesn’t really matter—you already have your million dollars, so you have nothing to lose by opening Box A.
This differs from the traditional two-boxing argument in one very important respect: you get new information in the middle of the experiment. Your single Omega-predictable algorithm doesn’t have to “change its mind” in the middle, it gets interrupted.
This is essentially what (might be) happening here. Harry has opened Box B and found a dead Hermione inside. That’s set and done. Assuming that he has reason to be believe that Box A will help him more than it will hurt him on average (and won’t contain, say, a dead/mindless/insane Fred and George), he has no reason not to open Box A.
A more perfectly isomorphic variant of Newcomb’s problem is the following. Both boxes are transparent, and Omega acts according to the following rule: if you two-box when box B is empty, then box B is always empty, while if you one-box, box B is empty with a 50% chance.
If you one-box in this variant, you win half a million dollars in expectation. If you intend to two-box should you see that box B is empty, then you only win a thousand dollars.
… Perhaps, but that’s no longer isomorphic to the actual problem. We are past the point of Omega’s influence; in Newcomb’s problem, it’d be as if Omega grabbed your mind state, ran it forward until it confirmed that you would not initially two-box, and then stopped. Omega itself has been removed from the problem, and you’re left with one empty box that you’ve already claimed a million dollars from (or negative one million, in this case) and one closed box.
Near as we can tell, history can’t change in the MoRverse: what’s done is done, so Harry might as well exploit it.
This is essentially what (might be) happening here. Harry has opened Box B and found a dead Hermione inside. That’s set and done. Assuming that he has reason to be believe that Box A will help him more than it will hurt him on average (and won’t contain, say, a dead/mindless/insane Fred and George), he has no reason not to open Box A.
Are you describing Transparent Newcomb’s problem? If so one should still one box when you see that the large box is empty. (I am not sure whether this maps precisely to the marauder’s map issue, I haven’t read the relevant chapter.)
This isn’t quite Newcomb’s Problem, though.
Consider this: You have essentially the same set up, and you’re a one-boxer, so you walk up and take your million dollars out of box B.
And then Omega comes back and says, “Oh, by the way, want to open Box A too?”
And you say, “Um. Okay?” And open Box A, and get a thousand dollars. Or not. Doesn’t really matter—you already have your million dollars, so you have nothing to lose by opening Box A.
This differs from the traditional two-boxing argument in one very important respect: you get new information in the middle of the experiment. Your single Omega-predictable algorithm doesn’t have to “change its mind” in the middle, it gets interrupted.
This is essentially what (might be) happening here. Harry has opened Box B and found a dead Hermione inside. That’s set and done. Assuming that he has reason to be believe that Box A will help him more than it will hurt him on average (and won’t contain, say, a dead/mindless/insane Fred and George), he has no reason not to open Box A.
A more perfectly isomorphic variant of Newcomb’s problem is the following. Both boxes are transparent, and Omega acts according to the following rule: if you two-box when box B is empty, then box B is always empty, while if you one-box, box B is empty with a 50% chance.
If you one-box in this variant, you win half a million dollars in expectation. If you intend to two-box should you see that box B is empty, then you only win a thousand dollars.
… Perhaps, but that’s no longer isomorphic to the actual problem. We are past the point of Omega’s influence; in Newcomb’s problem, it’d be as if Omega grabbed your mind state, ran it forward until it confirmed that you would not initially two-box, and then stopped. Omega itself has been removed from the problem, and you’re left with one empty box that you’ve already claimed a million dollars from (or negative one million, in this case) and one closed box.
Near as we can tell, history can’t change in the MoRverse: what’s done is done, so Harry might as well exploit it.
Are you describing Transparent Newcomb’s problem? If so one should still one box when you see that the large box is empty. (I am not sure whether this maps precisely to the marauder’s map issue, I haven’t read the relevant chapter.)