Maybe the focus shouldn’t be on the decision (or action) that leads to the best outcome, but on the decision procedure (or theory or algorithm) that leads to the best outcome.
If the outcome is entirely independent of the procedure, the difference is unimportant, so you can speak of “rational decision” and “rational decision procedure” interchangeably. But in newcomb’s problem, that’s not the case.
Maybe the focus shouldn’t be on the decision (or action) that leads to the best outcome, but on the decision procedure (or theory or algorithm) that leads to the best outcome.
If the outcome is entirely independent of the procedure, the difference is unimportant, so you can speak of “rational decision” and “rational decision procedure” interchangeably. But in newcomb’s problem, that’s not the case.
Yes, that’s my basic view.
The difficulty in part is that people seem to have different ideas of what it means to be rational.