Therefore, the world where the events take place is not real, it’s a figment of past-Omega’s imagination, predicting what you’d do. Your actions in the counterfactual just convinced past-Omega not to put the $1M in the box in the real world. Usually you don’t have a way of knowing whether the world is real, or what relative weight of reality it holds. Though in this case the reality of the world was under your control.
I don’t find the simulation argument very compelling. I can conceive of many ways for Omega to arrive at a prediction with high probability of being correct that don’t involve a full, particle-by-particle simulation of the actors.
Consider the distinction between a low level detailed simulation of a world where you are making a decision, and high level reasoning about your decision making. How would you know which one is being applied to you, from within? If there is a way of knowing that, you can act differently in these scenarios, so that the low level simulation won’t show the same outcome as the prediction made with high level reasoning. A good process of making predictions by high level reasoning won’t allow there to be a difference.
The counterfactual world I’m talking about does not have to exist in any way similar to the real world, such as by being explicitly simulated. It only needs the implied existence of worldbuilding of a fictional story. The difference from a fictional story is that the story is not arbitrary, there is a precise purpose that shapes the story needed for prediction. And for a fictional character, there is no straightforward way of noticing the fictional nature of the world.
Therefore, the world where the events take place is not real, it’s a figment of past-Omega’s imagination, predicting what you’d do. Your actions in the counterfactual just convinced past-Omega not to put the $1M in the box in the real world. Usually you don’t have a way of knowing whether the world is real, or what relative weight of reality it holds. Though in this case the reality of the world was under your control.
I don’t find the simulation argument very compelling. I can conceive of many ways for Omega to arrive at a prediction with high probability of being correct that don’t involve a full, particle-by-particle simulation of the actors.
Consider the distinction between a low level detailed simulation of a world where you are making a decision, and high level reasoning about your decision making. How would you know which one is being applied to you, from within? If there is a way of knowing that, you can act differently in these scenarios, so that the low level simulation won’t show the same outcome as the prediction made with high level reasoning. A good process of making predictions by high level reasoning won’t allow there to be a difference.
The counterfactual world I’m talking about does not have to exist in any way similar to the real world, such as by being explicitly simulated. It only needs the implied existence of worldbuilding of a fictional story. The difference from a fictional story is that the story is not arbitrary, there is a precise purpose that shapes the story needed for prediction. And for a fictional character, there is no straightforward way of noticing the fictional nature of the world.
Ah, that makes sense.