Parfit’s hitchhiker looks like a thinly veiled Omega problem to me. At the very least, considering the lack of scientific rigorousness in Ekman’s research, it should count as quite dubious, so adopting a new decision theory on the basis of that particular problem does not seem rational to me.
Yes, it’s a Newcomb-like problem. Anything where one agent predicts another is. People predict other people, with varying degrees of success, in the real world. Ignoring that when looking at decision theories seems silly to me.
I hold the belief that Newcomb, regardless of Omega’s accuracy, is impossible in the universe I currently live in. Also, this is not what this discussion is about, so please refrain from derailing it further.
Newcomb-like problems are the ones where TDT outperforms CDT. If you consider these problems to be impossible, and won’t change your mind, then you can’t believe that TDT satisfies your requirements.
Didn’t the paper show TDT performing better than CDT in Parfit’s Hitchhiker?
That might count as being of similar dubiousness, although I like this quote by Eliezer arguing otherwise:
Parfit’s hitchhiker looks like a thinly veiled Omega problem to me. At the very least, considering the lack of scientific rigorousness in Ekman’s research, it should count as quite dubious, so adopting a new decision theory on the basis of that particular problem does not seem rational to me.
Yes, it’s a Newcomb-like problem. Anything where one agent predicts another is. People predict other people, with varying degrees of success, in the real world. Ignoring that when looking at decision theories seems silly to me.
What do you do in Newcomb’s problem if Omega has a 45% chance of mispredicting you?
Algebra.
I’d start calling myself Omega Prime and making the reverse prediction to just say I’m smarter than Omega.
You’d then have a 55% chance of mispredicting (slightly worse than chance, where the 45% Omega is slightly better than chance).
Looks like I’d first have to start reading what people write correctly!
I hold the belief that Newcomb, regardless of Omega’s accuracy, is impossible in the universe I currently live in. Also, this is not what this discussion is about, so please refrain from derailing it further.
It’s highly relevant to your second point.
Newcomb-like problems are the ones where TDT outperforms CDT. If you consider these problems to be impossible, and won’t change your mind, then you can’t believe that TDT satisfies your requirements.