I think one boxing is the right response to newcombs problem but I don’t see any reason to one box as a creation of prometheus or create bob the jerk. I would two box in that prometheus problem if I understand correctly that that would net me an extra hundred dollars (and prometheus won’t hunt down “defective” creations). I’m saying this because maybe that means I just don’t understand something or because there’s an implicit wrong step that I’m too inferentially removed from to make or figure out what it is.
Anyway onto what might be wrong with your reasoning.
I’m putting what I think is the main thing you are wrong about at the front having stumbled across something I now think is what you’re wrong about but I’m still gonna leave the rest in.
The thing I think you’re wrong about:
Unless blueprint generation is done by models for individual actual people being psychically transferred (whole) onto blueprints across the multiverse or into blueprint makers minds (e.g. bob or jack or prometheus) there’s no reason what exactly you, personally, choose to do, should effect what Blueprint Bob or jack or prometheus come up with. Bob can just make a deal with you-except-will-make-deal-with-bob or any of the other limitless people he would make a deal with. It sounds like you think what you do changes what blueprints bob/prometheus choose from. This isn’t shorthand. This is just backwards.
“The implication is that you might need to one-box just to exist.” If you already exist you can’t need to one box to exist.
Reguarding bob. Why is he any more likely to exist than jack, who will only create you if you won’t create him (and is a nice guy to boot) if a jack creation machine falls off omega’s pickup truck? Those possibilities seem to be opposite. Are they equal? (And are they so low that even if being a bob creator gives you a better shot of existing it’s not worth making bob)
Quality over quantity? Is it worth the increased chance of existence (if there is any) to have bob around?
Do you really value like-you-ness? Given the chance will you tile the universe with you-clones? Are you going to donate sperm en masse and/oror have kids and raise them to be like you?
Won’t bob just make a deal with you-except-for-will-make-bob if you won’t make bob? Will or won’t make bob is not an essential property of you-ness right? It seems to be something that could go either way rather than a necessarry consequence of the type of person you are, which is presumably what you might value.
“you might still want to create him to “guarantee” the life you had before he was around.” You’ve already had the life you had before he was around. You won’t guarantee anyone else having the life you live before you’re around because he won’t create you in the same circumstances. Unless you mean to increase the likelyhood of your memories existing in which case you can create a person with your memories anyway (if this was ever somehow real as opposed to omega driving by in a pickup truck.
ok so the above organised:
you probably don’t value people like you existing or at least not in all cases.
e.g. if you are created by a jerk who makes your life a net negative.
There’s no way blueprints are generated by picking from actual existing people in other brances of a multiverse. You have no influence on what counterfactual you hypothetical bobs might pick from design space. No information transferral. If it’s an actual matter of cloning there might be other problems.
also,
“•An essential part of who you are is the fact that you were created by your parents, not by Bob the Jerk, so the counterfactual deal isn’t logically coherent. Someone he creates wouldn’t be you, it would be someone else.”
The first sentence is an unlikely definition of “you” or can be stipulated to be false. The second is true reguardless for my definition of you. If you’re talking to one of two clones that one is “you” and the other one is “him,” right? A clone of you is always someone else (is the way I see it.)
The first sentence is an unlikely definition of “you” or can be stipulated to be false.
I mean it as just one part of a much larger definition that includes far more things than just that. The history of how I was created obviously affects who I am.
Of course, it’s possible that Bob the Jerk really created me and then I was secretly adopted. But if that’s the case then he already exists in this universe, so I have no obligation to create him regardless.
If an essential part of who Bob the Jerk is is that he was a member of the KKK in 1965, does that mean it’s physically impossible for me to create him, I can only create a very similar person with falsified memories? I suppose it would depend on if the hypothetical deal involved creating him, or creating a sufficiently similar person. But if it involved creating a sufficiently similar person, I suppose I have no acausal obligation to Bob.
I think one boxing is the right response to newcombs problem but I don’t see any reason to one box as a creation of prometheus or create bob the jerk. I would two box in that prometheus problem if I understand correctly that that would net me an extra hundred dollars (and prometheus won’t hunt down “defective” creations). I’m saying this because maybe that means I just don’t understand something or because there’s an implicit wrong step that I’m too inferentially removed from to make or figure out what it is.
Anyway onto what might be wrong with your reasoning.
I’m putting what I think is the main thing you are wrong about at the front having stumbled across something I now think is what you’re wrong about but I’m still gonna leave the rest in.
The thing I think you’re wrong about:
Unless blueprint generation is done by models for individual actual people being psychically transferred (whole) onto blueprints across the multiverse or into blueprint makers minds (e.g. bob or jack or prometheus) there’s no reason what exactly you, personally, choose to do, should effect what Blueprint Bob or jack or prometheus come up with. Bob can just make a deal with you-except-will-make-deal-with-bob or any of the other limitless people he would make a deal with. It sounds like you think what you do changes what blueprints bob/prometheus choose from. This isn’t shorthand. This is just backwards.
“The implication is that you might need to one-box just to exist.” If you already exist you can’t need to one box to exist.
Reguarding bob. Why is he any more likely to exist than jack, who will only create you if you won’t create him (and is a nice guy to boot) if a jack creation machine falls off omega’s pickup truck? Those possibilities seem to be opposite. Are they equal? (And are they so low that even if being a bob creator gives you a better shot of existing it’s not worth making bob)
Quality over quantity? Is it worth the increased chance of existence (if there is any) to have bob around?
Do you really value like-you-ness? Given the chance will you tile the universe with you-clones? Are you going to donate sperm en masse and/oror have kids and raise them to be like you?
Won’t bob just make a deal with you-except-for-will-make-bob if you won’t make bob? Will or won’t make bob is not an essential property of you-ness right? It seems to be something that could go either way rather than a necessarry consequence of the type of person you are, which is presumably what you might value.
“you might still want to create him to “guarantee” the life you had before he was around.” You’ve already had the life you had before he was around. You won’t guarantee anyone else having the life you live before you’re around because he won’t create you in the same circumstances. Unless you mean to increase the likelyhood of your memories existing in which case you can create a person with your memories anyway (if this was ever somehow real as opposed to omega driving by in a pickup truck.
ok so the above organised:
you probably don’t value people like you existing or at least not in all cases. e.g. if you are created by a jerk who makes your life a net negative. There’s no way blueprints are generated by picking from actual existing people in other brances of a multiverse. You have no influence on what counterfactual you hypothetical bobs might pick from design space. No information transferral. If it’s an actual matter of cloning there might be other problems.
also,
“•An essential part of who you are is the fact that you were created by your parents, not by Bob the Jerk, so the counterfactual deal isn’t logically coherent. Someone he creates wouldn’t be you, it would be someone else.”
The first sentence is an unlikely definition of “you” or can be stipulated to be false. The second is true reguardless for my definition of you. If you’re talking to one of two clones that one is “you” and the other one is “him,” right? A clone of you is always someone else (is the way I see it.)
I mean it as just one part of a much larger definition that includes far more things than just that. The history of how I was created obviously affects who I am.
Of course, it’s possible that Bob the Jerk really created me and then I was secretly adopted. But if that’s the case then he already exists in this universe, so I have no obligation to create him regardless.
If an essential part of who Bob the Jerk is is that he was a member of the KKK in 1965, does that mean it’s physically impossible for me to create him, I can only create a very similar person with falsified memories? I suppose it would depend on if the hypothetical deal involved creating him, or creating a sufficiently similar person. But if it involved creating a sufficiently similar person, I suppose I have no acausal obligation to Bob.