On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 7:49 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 12 December 2014 at 12:22, Jason Resch <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 3:10 PM, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: > >> > >> On 11 December 2014 at 18:59, Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> > >> wrote: > >>> > >>> > >>> On Thursday, December 11, 2014, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: > >>>> > >>>> Maybe it's a delayed choice experiment and retroactively collapses the > >>>> wave function, so your choice actually does determine the contents of > the > >>>> boxes. > >>>> > >>>> (Just a thought...maybe the second box has a cat in it...) > >>>> > >>> No such trickery is required. Consider the experiment where the subject > >>> is a computer program and the clairvoyant is you, with the program's > source > >>> code and inputs. You will always know exactly what the program will do > by > >>> running it, including all its deliberations. If it is the sort of > program > >>> that decides to choose both boxes it will lose the million dollars. The > >>> question of whether it *ought to* choose both boxes or one is > meaningless if > >>> it is a deterministic program, and the paradox arises from failing to > >>> understand this. > >> > >> Not trickery, how dare you?! An attempt to give a meaningful answer > which > >> actually makes something worthwhile from what appears to be a trivial > >> "paradox" without any real teeth. > >> > >> But OK since you are determined to belittle my efforts, let's try your > >> approach. > >> > >> 1 wait 10 seconds > >> 2 print "after careful consideration, I have decided to open both boxes" > >> 3 stop > >> > >> This is what ANY deterministic computer programme (with no added random > >> inputs) would boil down to, although millions of lines of code might > take a > >> while to analyse, and the simplest way to find out the answer in > practice > >> might be to run it (but each run would give the same result, so once > it's > >> been run once we can replace it with my simpler version). > >> > >> I have to admit I can't see where the paradox is, or why there is any > >> interest in discussing it. > >> > > > > It's probably not a true paradox, but why it seems like one is that > > depending on which version of decision theory you use, you can be led to > two > > opposite conclusions. About half of people think one-boxing is best, and > the > > other half think two-boxing is best, and more often then not, people from > > either side think people on the other side are idiots. However, for > whatever > > reason, everyone on this list seems to agree one-boxing is best, so you > are > > missing out on the interesting discussions that can arise from seeing > people > > justify their alternate decision. > > > > Often two-boxers will say: the predictor's already made his decision, > what > > you decide now can't change the past or alter what's already been done. > So > > you're just leaving money on the table by not taking both boxes. An > > interesting twist one two-boxer told me was: what would you do if both > boxes > > were transparent, and how does that additional information change what > the > > best choice is? > > If both boxes were transparent, that would screw up the oracle's > ability to make the prediction, since there would be a feedback from > the oracle's attempt at prediction to the subject. The oracle can > predict if I'm going to pick head or tails, but the oracle *can't* > predict if I'm going to pick heads or tails if he tells me his > prediction then waits for me to make a decision. >
Right that's what I told him. :-) Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
