I think that, by definition, if you precommitted to something you have to do it. A “nonbinding precommitment” isn’t a precommitment despite the grammatical structure of that phrase, just like a “squashed circle” isn’t a circle.
(I do separately think Omega is impossible. Predicting someone’s actions in full generality, when they’re reacting to one of your own actions, implicates the Halting Problem.)
Yeah, I should have used more words. The “publicly state and behave as if precommitted sufficient to make Omega predict you will one-box, but then actually two-box” is what I meant. “Fake precommit” may be better than “nonbinding precommit” as a descriptor.
And, as you say, I don’t believe Omega is possible in our current world. Which means the thought experiment is of limited validity, except as an exploration of decision theory and theoretical causality.
“Is impossible in our current world” carries the connotation of “contingently impossible”. If Omega is impossible because he can’t solve the Halting Problem, he’s necessarily impossible.
There may be prediction or undetectable coercion mechanisms that work on humans to make Omega able to predict/cause choices in such scenarios, which don’t require to a fully-general solution to halting.
I think that, by definition, if you precommitted to something you have to do it. A “nonbinding precommitment” isn’t a precommitment despite the grammatical structure of that phrase, just like a “squashed circle” isn’t a circle.
(I do separately think Omega is impossible. Predicting someone’s actions in full generality, when they’re reacting to one of your own actions, implicates the Halting Problem.)
Yeah, I should have used more words. The “publicly state and behave as if precommitted sufficient to make Omega predict you will one-box, but then actually two-box” is what I meant. “Fake precommit” may be better than “nonbinding precommit” as a descriptor.
And, as you say, I don’t believe Omega is possible in our current world. Which means the thought experiment is of limited validity, except as an exploration of decision theory and theoretical causality.
“Is impossible in our current world” carries the connotation of “contingently impossible”. If Omega is impossible because he can’t solve the Halting Problem, he’s necessarily impossible.
There may be prediction or undetectable coercion mechanisms that work on humans to make Omega able to predict/cause choices in such scenarios, which don’t require to a fully-general solution to halting.