I think that any sensible decision theory will give corresponding answers to Newcomb and the Smoking Lesion, and I am assuming that TDT is sensible.
I think you don’t quite understand either how TDT is supposed to work, or how the way it works can be “sensible”. If you exogenously alter every “smoke” decision to “don’t smoke” in Smoking Lesion, your payoff doesn’t improve, by construction. If you exogenously alter every “two-box” decision to “one box”, this does change your payoff. Note the ‘exogenously’ qualification above, which is quite important—and note that the “exogenous” change must alter all logically-connected choices in the same way: in Newcomb, the very same exogenous input acts on Omega’s prediction as on your actual choice; and in Smoking Lesion, the change to “smoke” or “don’t smoke” occurs regardless of whether you have the Smoking Lesion or not.
(It might be that you could express the problems in EDT in a way that leads to the correct choice, by adding hardwired models of these “exogenous but logically-connected” decisions. But this isn’t something that most EDT advocates would describe as a necessary part of that theory—and this is all the more true if a similar change could work for CDT!)
Omega’s prediction in reality is based on the physical state of your brain. So if altering your choice in Newcomb alters Omega’s prediction, it also alters the state of your brain. And if that is the case, it can alter the state of your brain when you choose not to smoke in the Smoking Lesion.
The ‘state of your brain’ in Newcomb and Smoking Lesion need not be directly comparable. If you could alter the state of your brain in a way that makes you better off in Smoking Lesion just by exogenously forcing the “don’t smoke” choice, then the problem statement wouldn’t be allowed to include the proviso that choosing “don’t smoke” doesn’t improve your payoff.
The problem statement does not include the proviso that choosing not to smoke does not improve the payoff. It just says that if you have the lesion, you get cancer, and if you don’t, you don’t. And it says that people who choose to smoke, turn out to have the lesion, and people who choose not to smoke, turn out not to have the lesion. No proviso about not smoking not improving the payoff.
You might be right. But then TDT chooses not to smoke precisely when CDT does, because there is nothing that’s logically-but-not-physically/causally connected with the exogenous decision whether or not to smoke. Which arguably makes this version of the problem quite uninteresting.
I think you don’t quite understand either how TDT is supposed to work, or how the way it works can be “sensible”. If you exogenously alter every “smoke” decision to “don’t smoke” in Smoking Lesion, your payoff doesn’t improve, by construction. If you exogenously alter every “two-box” decision to “one box”, this does change your payoff. Note the ‘exogenously’ qualification above, which is quite important—and note that the “exogenous” change must alter all logically-connected choices in the same way: in Newcomb, the very same exogenous input acts on Omega’s prediction as on your actual choice; and in Smoking Lesion, the change to “smoke” or “don’t smoke” occurs regardless of whether you have the Smoking Lesion or not.
(It might be that you could express the problems in EDT in a way that leads to the correct choice, by adding hardwired models of these “exogenous but logically-connected” decisions. But this isn’t something that most EDT advocates would describe as a necessary part of that theory—and this is all the more true if a similar change could work for CDT!)
Omega’s prediction in reality is based on the physical state of your brain. So if altering your choice in Newcomb alters Omega’s prediction, it also alters the state of your brain. And if that is the case, it can alter the state of your brain when you choose not to smoke in the Smoking Lesion.
The ‘state of your brain’ in Newcomb and Smoking Lesion need not be directly comparable. If you could alter the state of your brain in a way that makes you better off in Smoking Lesion just by exogenously forcing the “don’t smoke” choice, then the problem statement wouldn’t be allowed to include the proviso that choosing “don’t smoke” doesn’t improve your payoff.
The problem statement does not include the proviso that choosing not to smoke does not improve the payoff. It just says that if you have the lesion, you get cancer, and if you don’t, you don’t. And it says that people who choose to smoke, turn out to have the lesion, and people who choose not to smoke, turn out not to have the lesion. No proviso about not smoking not improving the payoff.
You might be right. But then TDT chooses not to smoke precisely when CDT does, because there is nothing that’s logically-but-not-physically/causally connected with the exogenous decision whether or not to smoke. Which arguably makes this version of the problem quite uninteresting.