Re: Newcomb's Paradox
Hi Jason, Sorry for the delay ! On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 5:53 AM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: Telmo, Very creative solution! I think you may have been the first to out-smart the super-intelligence. Although would you risk $1,000,000 to gain the extra $1,000 on the belief that the super intelligence hasn't figured out a way to predict or account for collapse? QM could always be wrong of course, or maybe the super intelligence knows we're in a simulation and has reverse engineered the state of the pseudorandom number generator used to give the appearance of collapse/splitting. :-) Realistically, I would be a boring one boxer. Why risk one million for the extra one thousand? If I was convinced that the AI was that good, then I might risk it, more out of curiosity than a desire to beat the AI. In the worst case I would end up feeling like the K foundation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Foundation_Burn_a_Million_Quid Telmo. Jason On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 10:59 AM, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 9:55 AM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: I started quite a lively debate at work recently by bringing up Newcomb's Paradox. We debated topics ranging from the prisoner's dilemma to the halting problem, from free will to retro causality, from first person indeterminacy to Godel's incompleteness. My colleagues were about evenly split between one-boxing and two-boxing, and I was curious if there would be any more consensus among the members of this list. If you're unfamiliar with the problem there are descriptions here: http://www.philosophyexperiments.com/newcomb/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox If you reach a decision, please reply with whether your strategy would be to take one box or two, what assumptions you make, and why you think your strategy is best. I don't want to bias the results so I'll provide my answer in a follow-up post. Employ a quantum noise source to generate a random decision. With it, generate a very slightly unbalanced coin flip. Use it to decide on one box vs. two boxes. Give one box a very slight advantage. The only rational choice for the oracle is to bet on one box. You get 1 million with a probability of 0.5 or the full 1.01 million with a probability of 0.4. Telmo. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
On Friday, December 12, 2014, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 12/11/2014 5:49 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On 12 December 2014 at 12:22, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 3:10 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 11 December 2014 at 18:59, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On Thursday, December 11, 2014, LizR lizj...@gmail.com 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. Why not? If the oracle has a complete and accurate simulation of you then he can predict your response to what he tells you - it's just that what he told you may then no longer be truthful. Suppose he tells you he predicts you'll pick tails, but he actually predicts that after hearing this you'll pick heads. It just means he lied. It's somewhat like the unexpected hanging problem, if you reason from the premises given and you reach a contradiction then the contradiction was implicit in the premises and no valid conclusion follows from them. If the oracle lies then he controls the inputs and can still make a prediction. The difficulty arises when he tells the truth, which is effectively what happens with transparent boxes. I think then the answer for the oracle is then indeterminate since you can always do the opposite of what he tells you; although a super-oracle outside the system might still be able to predict what will actually happen. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
On 12 Dec 2014, at 02:22, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 3:10 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 11 December 2014 at 18:59, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On Thursday, December 11, 2014, LizR lizj...@gmail.com 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. Yes, I think that initially it was a test to see if you believe in free-will. here I add quotes for reason which I explain later. The idea is that those who take the two boxes believe in free-will, because they believe that if they decide to take only the box B, then there is money in the two boxes, and they leaves money on the table for nothing. They believe that somehow they can fool the predictor just because if it was correct, then the two boxes are full of money, so why not taken them both! But in this list I guess most people have no problem with determinism, and conceive some predictor, outside of the box, and capable to take into account the reasoning above. So we take one box. 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. It usually mirror well the believer in free-will, and indeed in the sense that John Clark mocks a lot, and here I agree with him. That notion of free-will negates determinacy, and consider that our decision are not predictable. That notion of free-will can be refuted. It really makes no sense. But the weaker notion of free-will, which is that that our decision are not predictable *by ourself*, still make sense. If we could find a way to predict ourselves, we would be cured against hesitation and doubt, but computationalism entails, by computer science, that there is no complete cure or vaccination against doubt and hesitation. Even inconsistency does not prevent you from doubting, only unsoundness (insanity) can, in theory. 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. You might try to see if what I say above is corroborated. Believer in strong (say) free-will choose two-boxing, and the non believer (like most people here I guess) in that strong free-will choose the one- boxing. 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? You are right with the analogy that it is a form of the surprise examination paradox. In this case the teacher says just today I will do a surprise examination. The more you take the teacher seriously, the more you make him inconsistent, even insane if you push a bit. It is a bit like I predict that tomorrow you will act in in a manner to make this prediction wrong. Smullyan is correct in seeing a relationship between the examination
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
On 10 Dec 2014, at 21:10, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On Thursday, December 11, 2014, Terren Suydam terren.suy...@gmail.com wrote: Same here, just one box. The paradox hinges on clairvoyance and how we could expect that to be sensible in the universe we live in. To my way of thinking, clairvoyance entails a sort of backwards- causation which I think can be made sensible in a multiverse. To wit, you make your choice (one box, say), and that collapses the possible universes you are in to the one in which the clairvoyant predicted you would choose one box, and so you get the money. In other words, the justification for choosing both boxes - that the contents of the boxes have already been determined - fails to provide an account of clairvoyance that can be made sensible. Or rather, I just can't think of one. Terren Clairvoyance, as you call it, is not logically problematic. What is logically problematic is free will. The paradox seems to be such because people believe that their decisions are neither determined nor random, which is nonsense. Free will is not problematic to me but I have never believed the idea that free will is related with some non-determinacy, which is the real non sense here imo. Free will needs only a high level local indeterminacy, which indeed all introspective machine have. Not a genuine nomological indeterminacy which in my opinion is non sensical. Bruno -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
On 11 December 2014 at 18:59, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On Thursday, December 11, 2014, LizR lizj...@gmail.com 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. My point, in case it wasn't clear, was that there is only a possible paradox (or at least something worth discussing) if the oracle is unreliable. But NP is stated in terms of a deterministic universe and an oracle that can foresee the future 100% accurately, so the only *possibility* of a paradox arises if it can be turned into a grandfather paradox via time-travel, which is what I suggested. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
On 12 December 2014 at 08:10, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 11 December 2014 at 18:59, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On Thursday, December 11, 2014, LizR lizj...@gmail.com 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. My point, in case it wasn't clear, was that there is only a possible paradox (or at least something worth discussing) if the oracle is unreliable. But NP is stated in terms of a deterministic universe and an oracle that can foresee the future 100% accurately, so the only possibility of a paradox arises if it can be turned into a grandfather paradox via time-travel, which is what I suggested. I didn't mean to offend. I meant that no clever explanation is needed because, in my view, it isn't really paradoxical - which (in the deterministic case, which is how NP is usually stated) you seem to agree with. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
On 12 December 2014 at 13:47, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: I didn't mean to offend. I meant that no clever explanation is needed because, in my view, it isn't really paradoxical - which (in the deterministic case, which is how NP is usually stated) you seem to agree with. Sorry. Yes. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 3:10 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 11 December 2014 at 18:59, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On Thursday, December 11, 2014, LizR lizj...@gmail.com 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? 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
If the world is deterministic and the oracle is always right then one boxing is clearly the better choice (assuming you just want to maximise your return), because if you take both then determinism and correctness will mean you have to lose, by definition of those terms. I'll have a think about the transparent boxes... On 12 December 2014 at 14:22, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 3:10 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 11 December 2014 at 18:59, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On Thursday, December 11, 2014, LizR lizj...@gmail.com 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? 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
On 12 December 2014 at 12:22, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 3:10 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 11 December 2014 at 18:59, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On Thursday, December 11, 2014, LizR lizj...@gmail.com 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. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 7:49 PM, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On 12 December 2014 at 12:22, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 3:10 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 11 December 2014 at 18:59, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On Thursday, December 11, 2014, LizR lizj...@gmail.com 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
The two transparent boxes can have two possible outcomes. One is that the player only takes box B, which contains $1 million (I believe is the agreed amount). The other is that the player sees the million dollars, takes both boxes, and proves that the oracle is not infallible, The problem with N's problem is that it isn't well enough defined to be a problem! Without stipulating the nature of the oracle, the nature of reality, and so on, there is no way to evaluate the situation. Why is the oracle thought to be infallible? How could it possibly know in advance what someone will do? Are we living in a multiverse in which all decisions get made anyway? Etc. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
On 12 December 2014 at 14:49, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: 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. Well, yes, it's basically another version of my suggestion about retroactive collapse of the wavefunction, which was also an attempt to feed back information from the time when the decision is made to the point at which the prediction was made. So I stand by my original point - this can only be a paradox if it's turned into a Grandfather paradox - i.e. if in some way there is a self-negating temporal loop from the making of the decision to the making of the prediction (obviously making the boxes transparent means there's no need for actual time travel, but it's the same feedback principle - admittedly rather more simple to arrange!) -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 8:55 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: The two transparent boxes can have two possible outcomes. One is that the player only takes box B, which contains $1 million (I believe is the agreed amount). The other is that the player sees the million dollars, takes both boxes, and proves that the oracle is not infallible, The problem with N's problem is that it isn't well enough defined to be a problem! Without stipulating the nature of the oracle, the nature of reality, and so on, there is no way to evaluate the situation. Why is the oracle thought to be infallible? How could it possibly know in advance what someone will do? Are we living in a multiverse in which all decisions get made anyway? Etc. Oddly, philosophy undergraduates lean towards one box, while philsophy professors favor two boxes: http://lesswrong.com/lw/hqs/why_do_theists_undergrads_and_less_wrongers_favor/ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
On 12/11/2014 5:49 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On 12 December 2014 at 12:22, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 3:10 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 11 December 2014 at 18:59, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On Thursday, December 11, 2014, LizR lizj...@gmail.com 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. Why not? If the oracle has a complete and accurate simulation of you then he can predict your response to what he tells you - it's just that what he told you may then no longer be truthful. Suppose he tells you he predicts you'll pick tails, but he actually predicts that after hearing this you'll pick heads. It just means he lied. It's somewhat like the unexpected hanging problem, if you reason from the premises given and you reach a contradiction then the contradiction was implicit in the premises and no valid conclusion follows from them. Brent -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Newcomb's Paradox
I started quite a lively debate at work recently by bringing up Newcomb's Paradox. We debated topics ranging from the prisoner's dilemma to the halting problem, from free will to retro causality, from first person indeterminacy to Godel's incompleteness. My colleagues were about evenly split between one-boxing and two-boxing, and I was curious if there would be any more consensus among the members of this list. If you're unfamiliar with the problem there are descriptions here: http://www.philosophyexperiments.com/newcomb/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox If you reach a decision, please reply with whether your strategy would be to take one box or two, what assumptions you make, and why you think your strategy is best. I don't want to bias the results so I'll provide my answer in a follow-up post. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
On 10 Dec 2014, at 09:55, Jason Resch wrote: I started quite a lively debate at work recently by bringing up Newcomb's Paradox. We debated topics ranging from the prisoner's dilemma to the halting problem, from free will to retro causality, from first person indeterminacy to Godel's incompleteness. My colleagues were about evenly split between one-boxing and two- boxing, and I was curious if there would be any more consensus among the members of this list. If you're unfamiliar with the problem there are descriptions here: http://www.philosophyexperiments.com/newcomb/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox If you reach a decision, please reply with whether your strategy would be to take one box or two, what assumptions you make, and why you think your strategy is best. I don't want to bias the results so I'll provide my answer in a follow-up post. I take only one box. Non randomly! I use my free-will ... To be sure and make thing simpler, I assume the predictor is 100% accurate. Bruno 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
Same here, just one box. The paradox hinges on clairvoyance and how we could expect that to be sensible in the universe we live in. To my way of thinking, clairvoyance entails a sort of backwards-causation which I think can be made sensible in a multiverse. To wit, you make your choice (one box, say), and that collapses the possible universes you are in to the one in which the clairvoyant predicted you would choose one box, and so you get the money. In other words, the justification for choosing both boxes - that the contents of the boxes have already been determined - fails to provide an account of clairvoyance that can be made sensible. Or rather, I just can't think of one. Terren On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 5:13 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 10 Dec 2014, at 09:55, Jason Resch wrote: I started quite a lively debate at work recently by bringing up Newcomb's Paradox. We debated topics ranging from the prisoner's dilemma to the halting problem, from free will to retro causality, from first person indeterminacy to Godel's incompleteness. My colleagues were about evenly split between one-boxing and two-boxing, and I was curious if there would be any more consensus among the members of this list. If you're unfamiliar with the problem there are descriptions here: http://www.philosophyexperiments.com/newcomb/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox If you reach a decision, please reply with whether your strategy would be to take one box or two, what assumptions you make, and why you think your strategy is best. I don't want to bias the results so I'll provide my answer in a follow-up post. I take only one box. Non randomly! I use my free-will ... To be sure and make thing simpler, I assume the predictor is 100% accurate. Bruno 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
What if its not a clairvoyant but a super intelligent alien with an accuracy of 99.% does that change your answer? What if it is a human psychologist with an accuracy of 80%? One of my friends said if it was 100% he would one-box, but if it was even slightly below 100% he would take two boxes. Jason On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 10:36 AM, Terren Suydam terren.suy...@gmail.com wrote: Same here, just one box. The paradox hinges on clairvoyance and how we could expect that to be sensible in the universe we live in. To my way of thinking, clairvoyance entails a sort of backwards-causation which I think can be made sensible in a multiverse. To wit, you make your choice (one box, say), and that collapses the possible universes you are in to the one in which the clairvoyant predicted you would choose one box, and so you get the money. In other words, the justification for choosing both boxes - that the contents of the boxes have already been determined - fails to provide an account of clairvoyance that can be made sensible. Or rather, I just can't think of one. Terren On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 5:13 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 10 Dec 2014, at 09:55, Jason Resch wrote: I started quite a lively debate at work recently by bringing up Newcomb's Paradox. We debated topics ranging from the prisoner's dilemma to the halting problem, from free will to retro causality, from first person indeterminacy to Godel's incompleteness. My colleagues were about evenly split between one-boxing and two-boxing, and I was curious if there would be any more consensus among the members of this list. If you're unfamiliar with the problem there are descriptions here: http://www.philosophyexperiments.com/newcomb/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox If you reach a decision, please reply with whether your strategy would be to take one box or two, what assumptions you make, and why you think your strategy is best. I don't want to bias the results so I'll provide my answer in a follow-up post. I take only one box. Non randomly! I use my free-will ... To be sure and make thing simpler, I assume the predictor is 100% accurate. Bruno 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 9:55 AM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: I started quite a lively debate at work recently by bringing up Newcomb's Paradox. We debated topics ranging from the prisoner's dilemma to the halting problem, from free will to retro causality, from first person indeterminacy to Godel's incompleteness. My colleagues were about evenly split between one-boxing and two-boxing, and I was curious if there would be any more consensus among the members of this list. If you're unfamiliar with the problem there are descriptions here: http://www.philosophyexperiments.com/newcomb/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox If you reach a decision, please reply with whether your strategy would be to take one box or two, what assumptions you make, and why you think your strategy is best. I don't want to bias the results so I'll provide my answer in a follow-up post. Employ a quantum noise source to generate a random decision. With it, generate a very slightly unbalanced coin flip. Use it to decide on one box vs. two boxes. Give one box a very slight advantage. The only rational choice for the oracle is to bet on one box. You get 1 million with a probability of 0.5 or the full 1.01 million with a probability of 0.4. Telmo. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
I would say if his predictions are better than 50% accuracy, I would go for one box... But I would still need a proof that they effectively are... and maybe also an explanation of how the predictions are made... Regards, Quentin 2014-12-10 17:48 GMT+01:00 Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com: What if its not a clairvoyant but a super intelligent alien with an accuracy of 99.% does that change your answer? What if it is a human psychologist with an accuracy of 80%? One of my friends said if it was 100% he would one-box, but if it was even slightly below 100% he would take two boxes. Jason On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 10:36 AM, Terren Suydam terren.suy...@gmail.com wrote: Same here, just one box. The paradox hinges on clairvoyance and how we could expect that to be sensible in the universe we live in. To my way of thinking, clairvoyance entails a sort of backwards-causation which I think can be made sensible in a multiverse. To wit, you make your choice (one box, say), and that collapses the possible universes you are in to the one in which the clairvoyant predicted you would choose one box, and so you get the money. In other words, the justification for choosing both boxes - that the contents of the boxes have already been determined - fails to provide an account of clairvoyance that can be made sensible. Or rather, I just can't think of one. Terren On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 5:13 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 10 Dec 2014, at 09:55, Jason Resch wrote: I started quite a lively debate at work recently by bringing up Newcomb's Paradox. We debated topics ranging from the prisoner's dilemma to the halting problem, from free will to retro causality, from first person indeterminacy to Godel's incompleteness. My colleagues were about evenly split between one-boxing and two-boxing, and I was curious if there would be any more consensus among the members of this list. If you're unfamiliar with the problem there are descriptions here: http://www.philosophyexperiments.com/newcomb/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox If you reach a decision, please reply with whether your strategy would be to take one box or two, what assumptions you make, and why you think your strategy is best. I don't want to bias the results so I'll provide my answer in a follow-up post. I take only one box. Non randomly! I use my free-will ... To be sure and make thing simpler, I assume the predictor is 100% accurate. Bruno 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
On Thursday, December 11, 2014, Terren Suydam terren.suy...@gmail.com wrote: Same here, just one box. The paradox hinges on clairvoyance and how we could expect that to be sensible in the universe we live in. To my way of thinking, clairvoyance entails a sort of backwards-causation which I think can be made sensible in a multiverse. To wit, you make your choice (one box, say), and that collapses the possible universes you are in to the one in which the clairvoyant predicted you would choose one box, and so you get the money. In other words, the justification for choosing both boxes - that the contents of the boxes have already been determined - fails to provide an account of clairvoyance that can be made sensible. Or rather, I just can't think of one. Terren Clairvoyance, as you call it, is not logically problematic. What is logically problematic is free will. The paradox seems to be such because people believe that their decisions are neither determined nor random, which is nonsense. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
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...) On 11 December 2014 at 09:10, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On Thursday, December 11, 2014, Terren Suydam terren.suy...@gmail.com wrote: Same here, just one box. The paradox hinges on clairvoyance and how we could expect that to be sensible in the universe we live in. To my way of thinking, clairvoyance entails a sort of backwards-causation which I think can be made sensible in a multiverse. To wit, you make your choice (one box, say), and that collapses the possible universes you are in to the one in which the clairvoyant predicted you would choose one box, and so you get the money. In other words, the justification for choosing both boxes - that the contents of the boxes have already been determined - fails to provide an account of clairvoyance that can be made sensible. Or rather, I just can't think of one. Terren Clairvoyance, as you call it, is not logically problematic. What is logically problematic is free will. The paradox seems to be such because people believe that their decisions are neither determined nor random, which is nonsense. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
Telmo, Very creative solution! I think you may have been the first to out-smart the super-intelligence. Although would you risk $1,000,000 to gain the extra $1,000 on the belief that the super intelligence hasn't figured out a way to predict or account for collapse? QM could always be wrong of course, or maybe the super intelligence knows we're in a simulation and has reverse engineered the state of the pseudorandom number generator used to give the appearance of collapse/splitting. :-) Jason On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 10:59 AM, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 9:55 AM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: I started quite a lively debate at work recently by bringing up Newcomb's Paradox. We debated topics ranging from the prisoner's dilemma to the halting problem, from free will to retro causality, from first person indeterminacy to Godel's incompleteness. My colleagues were about evenly split between one-boxing and two-boxing, and I was curious if there would be any more consensus among the members of this list. If you're unfamiliar with the problem there are descriptions here: http://www.philosophyexperiments.com/newcomb/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox If you reach a decision, please reply with whether your strategy would be to take one box or two, what assumptions you make, and why you think your strategy is best. I don't want to bias the results so I'll provide my answer in a follow-up post. Employ a quantum noise source to generate a random decision. With it, generate a very slightly unbalanced coin flip. Use it to decide on one box vs. two boxes. Give one box a very slight advantage. The only rational choice for the oracle is to bet on one box. You get 1 million with a probability of 0.5 or the full 1.01 million with a probability of 0.4. Telmo. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
How boring though, that everyone agrees with one-boxing... Jason On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 10:53 PM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: Telmo, Very creative solution! I think you may have been the first to out-smart the super-intelligence. Although would you risk $1,000,000 to gain the extra $1,000 on the belief that the super intelligence hasn't figured out a way to predict or account for collapse? QM could always be wrong of course, or maybe the super intelligence knows we're in a simulation and has reverse engineered the state of the pseudorandom number generator used to give the appearance of collapse/splitting. :-) Jason On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 10:59 AM, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 9:55 AM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: I started quite a lively debate at work recently by bringing up Newcomb's Paradox. We debated topics ranging from the prisoner's dilemma to the halting problem, from free will to retro causality, from first person indeterminacy to Godel's incompleteness. My colleagues were about evenly split between one-boxing and two-boxing, and I was curious if there would be any more consensus among the members of this list. If you're unfamiliar with the problem there are descriptions here: http://www.philosophyexperiments.com/newcomb/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox If you reach a decision, please reply with whether your strategy would be to take one box or two, what assumptions you make, and why you think your strategy is best. I don't want to bias the results so I'll provide my answer in a follow-up post. Employ a quantum noise source to generate a random decision. With it, generate a very slightly unbalanced coin flip. Use it to decide on one box vs. two boxes. Give one box a very slight advantage. The only rational choice for the oracle is to bet on one box. You get 1 million with a probability of 0.5 or the full 1.01 million with a probability of 0.4. Telmo. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
We also developed an analogous version of the Newcomb's paradox, but couched in the form of the prisoner's dilemma: If you were forced to play in the prisoners dilemma against yourself (in a fully deterministic setting such as with both of your minds uploaded to a computer), would you defect or cooperate (assuming you're playing completely selfishly with no regard for your opponent)? In classic prisoner's dilemma defecting is always better than cooperating, because it's a better choice when your opponent defects, and it is a better choice when your opponent cooperates. (Just like some decision theories say its always better to take two boxes, because no matter what is in the opaque box, you get an extra $1,000 on top). However, in this situation (when playing against a deterministic copy of yourself) your choice is correlated to (though not physically / causally related) to the choice made by your opponent. So those who one-box are more apt to say co-operation is better than defecting in this case, since the Defect/Cooperate, and Cooperate/Defect outcomes are no longer possible. -- Just as with an accurate predictor, getting $0 or getting $1,001,000 is not possible. Is there anyone here who thinks two-boxing (or defecting in the above choice) is the correct decision? Jason On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 10:54 PM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: How boring though, that everyone agrees with one-boxing... Jason On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 10:53 PM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: Telmo, Very creative solution! I think you may have been the first to out-smart the super-intelligence. Although would you risk $1,000,000 to gain the extra $1,000 on the belief that the super intelligence hasn't figured out a way to predict or account for collapse? QM could always be wrong of course, or maybe the super intelligence knows we're in a simulation and has reverse engineered the state of the pseudorandom number generator used to give the appearance of collapse/splitting. :-) Jason On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 10:59 AM, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 9:55 AM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: I started quite a lively debate at work recently by bringing up Newcomb's Paradox. We debated topics ranging from the prisoner's dilemma to the halting problem, from free will to retro causality, from first person indeterminacy to Godel's incompleteness. My colleagues were about evenly split between one-boxing and two-boxing, and I was curious if there would be any more consensus among the members of this list. If you're unfamiliar with the problem there are descriptions here: http://www.philosophyexperiments.com/newcomb/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox If you reach a decision, please reply with whether your strategy would be to take one box or two, what assumptions you make, and why you think your strategy is best. I don't want to bias the results so I'll provide my answer in a follow-up post. Employ a quantum noise source to generate a random decision. With it, generate a very slightly unbalanced coin flip. Use it to decide on one box vs. two boxes. Give one box a very slight advantage. The only rational choice for the oracle is to bet on one box. You get 1 million with a probability of 0.5 or the full 1.01 million with a probability of 0.4. Telmo. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
On Thursday, December 11, 2014, LizR lizj...@gmail.com 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. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's Paradox
On 12/10/2014 9:02 PM, Jason Resch wrote: We also developed an analogous version of the Newcomb's paradox, but couched in the form of the prisoner's dilemma: If you were forced to play in the prisoners dilemma against yourself (in a fully deterministic setting such as with both of your minds uploaded to a computer), would you defect or cooperate (assuming you're playing completely selfishly with no regard for your opponent)? In classic prisoner's dilemma defecting is always better than cooperating, because it's a better choice when your opponent defects, and it is a better choice when your opponent cooperates. (Just like some decision theories say its always better to take two boxes, because no matter what is in the opaque box, you get an extra $1,000 on top). However, in this situation (when playing against a deterministic copy of yourself) your choice is correlated to (though not physically / causally related) to the choice made by your opponent. So those who one-box are more apt to say co-operation is better than defecting in this case, since the Defect/Cooperate, and Cooperate/Defect outcomes are no longer possible. -- Just as with an accurate predictor, getting $0 or getting $1,001,000 is not possible. Is there anyone here who thinks two-boxing (or defecting in the above choice) is the correct decision? Dunno. I'll run my simulation and find out. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Newcomb's paradox (with terrestrial predictor)
At 11:35 +0200 25/07/2002, Bruno Marchal wrote: My opinion: Giving the hypothesis that the predictor is good, I think Irene makes the right choice. In both this version and the traditional one. In real life, though, I would be doubtful that such a predictor can exist. So I am not sure there can be a pragmatic content in those stories. So let us made the predictor more terrestrial. Let us suppose, in a first step, that he is lazy, fallible, and naive. (He = She/He/it...). Lazy: He *can* predict, but he does not want, due to the hard task involved. Fallible: He can be wrong! Naive: Because his/her strategy is just to ask you if you are causalist, like Rachel, or evidentialist like Irene. He is naive because he believes you. So if you say you are evidentialist, he put 1m dollars in each boxes. If you say you are causalist, he put nothing in the boxes. Here too Irene has no problem; she say I am evidentialist and will win 1m$ taking one boxes. She thrust the predictor like in the infallible predictor case, but here the predictor thrust her too. Rachel can say I'm a causalist and then take the two boxes, and win nothing. (bad use of honesty! I would think). Rachel can say I'm a causalist and then take one box, and win nothing too. But perhaps she enjoys because it looks she want deceive the predictor! Rachel can say I'm a evidentialist, and then takes the two boxes. She wins a lot! She loses definitely the predictor thrust. This one will do, now, the hard predictive task, or may be just buy a lying-test machine! (H's very lazy!) Is not Irene a long way from cooperative game? ? Bruno
Re: Newcomb's paradox
At 15:49 -0700 23/07/2002, Hal Finney wrote: I took the liberty of copying a few paragraphs from James Joyce's book describing the causalist argument in Newcomb's Paradox. This is the best statement of the argument for taking both boxes that I have seen. I also included a short response of my own, which describes an alternate way of viewing the paradox based on multiverse models. It is at http://www.finney.org/~hal/Newcomb.html. Why so much fuss for just having 1000$ more than 100$ ? I would take box A, letting the 1000 dollars in box B as a pourboire for the predictor :-) A more symmetric version of the paradox prevents this joke. The predictor gives you the choice between taking 2 boxes or just one. In that case you can choose it at will. The predictor said again that he can predict what you will do; and in case you will take the two boxes, he will put nothing in it! If you take just one box, he puts 100$ in each boxes. This version makes possible to reason in term of Einstein's reality elements (which he did introduce in the famous EPR paper). Einstein defines an element of reality by the rule: If I can predict with certainty the outcome of an experiment I could do (but will not do) then the outcome I would have find corresponds to an element of reality. The rational causalist Rachel reasons like that: the predictor is very good (hypothesis) so by taking one box I will gain 1m$. Now this does not depend on which box I choose. So I can predict with certainty that if I take only box A, I will find 1m$ inside, and similarly I can predict that if I take only box B, I will find 1m$ inside too. Like in EPR the causalist Rachel supposes some form of locality (no action at a distance, no action in the past, ...). This gives a proof that the element of reality owning 1m$ is true for each boxes. So she decides to take the two boxes. And because the predictor is indeed good, she wins O$! The irrational (?) evidencialist Irene reasons like that: the predictor is very good (hypothesis), so by taking just one box I will gain 1m$ ---whichever box I choose! So let me choose just one box. And she goes away with her box, and she wins 1m$. Rachel comes by and ask her if she (Irene) realizes that she has just abandoned 1m$. 'No, said Irene. 'the predictor would have predict I would have take the two boxes, and he would have put nothing in it. And I would have win 0$. Why not take seriously the hypothesis that the predictor is good'. -'But still you know there is 1m$ left in the other box', said Rachel. 'Yes, Irene said, 'but only because the predictor knew I will take only one box. Now nothing prevent you of taking the other box'. So thanks to irrational Irene, both of them wins 1m$. And then they married and get a very happy life! The kind of life you can get when you manage to handle both cause and evidence, a subtle mixture of reason and madness perhaps! My opinion: Giving the hypothesis that the predictor is good, I think Irene makes the right choice. In both this version and the traditional one. In real life, though, I would be doubtful that such a predictor can exist. So I am not sure there can be a pragmatic content in those stories. I think also Hal makes an interesting point showing perhaps the first (to my knowledge) rational argument for a role of consciousness/free-will in collapsing the wave packet(*), or for consciousness deciding the output of a quantum experience, or, in this version, consciousness making up elements of reality (all this deserves perhaps to be more deeply scrutinized). The weakness of the argument comes from the existence of the predictor hyp. Bruno (*) Still in Everett sense, not in the Copenhague sense.
Re: Newcomb's paradox
The very act of predicting what you will choose is equivalent to generating you virtually and observing what box you will choose. So, when you stand in front of the two boxes, you don't know if you are in the real world or in the virtual world. The causal argument is thus invalid. The only way to beat the (imperfect) experimenter is to try to guess if you are in the real world or in the virtual world and choose A if you think that you are in the virtual world and choose A and B if you think that you are in the real world. If the probability that your guess is right is p, then this strategy will yield on average P*(10^3 + 10^6) dollars. So you need to be more than 99.9% sure about your whereabouts. This suggest that the a perfect simulation of someones brain generates a virtual reality with a relative measure of 50%. Saibal - Oorspronkelijk bericht - Van: Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] Aan: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Verzonden: dinsdag 23 juli 2002 23:49 Onderwerp: Newcomb's paradox I took the liberty of copying a few paragraphs from James Joyce's book describing the causalist argument in Newcomb's Paradox. This is the best statement of the argument for taking both boxes that I have seen. I also included a short response of my own, which describes an alternate way of viewing the paradox based on multiverse models. It is at http://www.finney.org/~hal/Newcomb.html. Hal Finney
Newcomb's paradox
I took the liberty of copying a few paragraphs from James Joyce's book describing the causalist argument in Newcomb's Paradox. This is the best statement of the argument for taking both boxes that I have seen. I also included a short response of my own, which describes an alternate way of viewing the paradox based on multiverse models. It is at http://www.finney.org/~hal/Newcomb.html. Hal Finney
Re: Newcomb's paradox
Hal Finney wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED]"> I took the liberty of copying a few paragraphs from James Joyce'sbook describing the causalist argument in Newcomb's Paradox. This isthe best statement of the argument for taking both boxes that I haveseen. I also included a short response of my own, which describes analternate way of viewing the paradox based on multiverse models.It is at http://www.finney.org/~hal/Newcomb.html.Hal Finney In my opinion both evidentialist argument and causalist argument are faulty. First let me say that there is no paradox from the experimenter point of view. He is so smart and knows your own mind so well that he can make accurate deterministic prediction of your decision to the test. One could compare the experimenter to a very smart programmer and the subject to an AI system that the programmer has programmed. It is clear that if the programmer knows every line of code, has performed several a-priori simulations and had the opportunity of many debugging sessions with the system, he knows exactly how the AI system will behave in the experimental situation. He can therefore be confident in inputting in the system the fact that he knows how the system will react in the Newcomb experiment. Therefore, the only apparent paradox is from the point of view of the subject of the experiment (or from the point of view of the program).The paradox illustrates several things: 1) Causality is an illusion that depends on the state of mind of the observer: The Newcomb experimenter does not perceive any violation in the causal order. His world, including the subject of the experiment, is purely deterministic. Yet the Newcomb subject is faced in the apparent violation of the temporal causal order. The behavior of the experimenter is inconsistent from the subject's perspective, according to the set of axioms and rules governing the subject's mind. 2) Free Will also depends on the frame of mind of the observer. In the Programmer/Program analogy, it is clear that the program has no free will. Its operation is purely deterministic. 3) Even consciousness is questionable. Is the AI progam conscious? According to whom? To the AI program itself? Yes! To the programmer? No! What would I do If I was the subject of the experiment. The answer is that I wouldn't really care one way or another about picking one or two box because I would know then that the world is inhabited by a super being and that he is the one who really calls the shot. I could actually refuse to play, just to prove that I have free will and this is an outcome the experimenter would not have predicted. Having free will would definitely be more important to me than a million dollars. If I was the program, I would make sure that the programmer still has a lot of debugging to do with me! :-) George
