Newcomb’s problem makes the stronger precondition that the agent is both predictable and that in fact one action has been predicted. In that specific situation, it would be hard to argue against that one action being determined and immutable, even if in general there is debate about the relationship between determinism and predictability.
Hmm, the FAQ, as currently worded, does not state this. It simply implies that the agent is human, that omega has made 1000 correct predictions, and that omega has billions of sensors and a computer the size of the moon. That’s large, but finite. One may assign some finite complexity to Omega—say 100 bits per atom times the number of atoms in the moon, whatever. I believe that one may devise pseudo-random number generators that can defy this kind of compute power. The relevant point here is that Omega, while powerful, is still not “God” (infinite, infallible, all-seeing), nor is it an “oracle” (in the computer-science definition of an “oracle”: viz a machine that can decide undecidable computational problems).
I do not want to make estimates on how and with what accuracy Omega can predict. There is not nearly enough context available for this. Wikipedia’s version has no detail whatsoever on the nature of Omega. There seems to be enough discussion to be had, even with the perhaps impossible assumption that Omega can predict perfectly, always, and that this can be known by the subject with absolute certainty.
Newcomb’s problem makes the stronger precondition that the agent is both predictable and that in fact one action has been predicted. In that specific situation, it would be hard to argue against that one action being determined and immutable, even if in general there is debate about the relationship between determinism and predictability.
Hmm, the FAQ, as currently worded, does not state this. It simply implies that the agent is human, that omega has made 1000 correct predictions, and that omega has billions of sensors and a computer the size of the moon. That’s large, but finite. One may assign some finite complexity to Omega—say 100 bits per atom times the number of atoms in the moon, whatever. I believe that one may devise pseudo-random number generators that can defy this kind of compute power. The relevant point here is that Omega, while powerful, is still not “God” (infinite, infallible, all-seeing), nor is it an “oracle” (in the computer-science definition of an “oracle”: viz a machine that can decide undecidable computational problems).
I do not want to make estimates on how and with what accuracy Omega can predict. There is not nearly enough context available for this. Wikipedia’s version has no detail whatsoever on the nature of Omega. There seems to be enough discussion to be had, even with the perhaps impossible assumption that Omega can predict perfectly, always, and that this can be known by the subject with absolute certainty.