My problem with causal decision theory is that it treats the past different from the future for no good reason. If you read the quantum physics sequence, particularly the part about timeless physics, you will find that time is most likely not even an explicit dimension. The past is more likely to be known, but it’s not fundamentally different from the future.
The probability of box A having money in it is significantly higher given that you one box then the probability given that you do not. What more do you need to know?
This seems like an interesting point. If either time or causation doesn’t work in the way we generally tend to think it does then the intuitions in favour of CDT fall pretty quickly. However, timeless physics is hardly established science and various people are not very positive about the QM sequence. So while this seems interesting I don’t know that it helps me personally to come to a final conclusion on the matter.
Omega offers you two boxes. One is empty and the other has one thousand dollars. He offers you a choice of taking just the empty box or both boxes. If you just take the empty box, he will put a million dollars in it. You decide that you can’t change the big bang, and given the big bang his choice of whether or not to put a million dollars in the box is certain, so you can’t influence his decision to put the money in the box. As such, you might as well take both boxes.
How can you have control over the future but not the past if the two are correlated?
My problem with causal decision theory is that it treats the past different from the future for no good reason. If you read the quantum physics sequence, particularly the part about timeless physics, you will find that time is most likely not even an explicit dimension. The past is more likely to be known, but it’s not fundamentally different from the future.
The probability of box A having money in it is significantly higher given that you one box then the probability given that you do not. What more do you need to know?
This seems like an interesting point. If either time or causation doesn’t work in the way we generally tend to think it does then the intuitions in favour of CDT fall pretty quickly. However, timeless physics is hardly established science and various people are not very positive about the QM sequence. So while this seems interesting I don’t know that it helps me personally to come to a final conclusion on the matter.
Consider this altered form of the problem:
Omega offers you two boxes. One is empty and the other has one thousand dollars. He offers you a choice of taking just the empty box or both boxes. If you just take the empty box, he will put a million dollars in it. You decide that you can’t change the big bang, and given the big bang his choice of whether or not to put a million dollars in the box is certain, so you can’t influence his decision to put the money in the box. As such, you might as well take both boxes.
How can you have control over the future but not the past if the two are correlated?