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The existence of a flawless predictor means that you do not have a choice after the predictor made its prediction, the decision must already be baked into the s

by danbruc 7mo ago

The existence of a flawless predictor means that you do not have a choice after the predictor made its prediction, the decision must already be baked into the state of the universe accessible to the predictor. It also precludes that any true randomness is affecting the choice as that could not be predicted ahead of time. I do not think that allowing some prediction error fundamentally changes this, it only means that sometimes the choice may depend on unpredictable true randomness or sometimes the predictor does not measured the relevant state of the universe exactly enough or the prediction algorithm is not flawless. But if the predictor still arrives at the correct prediction most of the time, then most of the time you do not have a choice and most of the time the choice does not depend on true randomness. Which also renders the entire paradox somewhat moot because there is no choice for you to be made. The existence of a good predictor and the ability to make a choice after the prediction are incompatible. Up to wild time travel scenarios and thinks like that.

halfcat 7mo ago
A flawless predictor would indicate you’re in a simulation, but also we cannot even simulate multiple cells at the most fine-grained level of physics. But also you’re right that even a pretty good (but not perfect) predictor doesn’t change the scenario. What I find interesting is to change the amounts. If the open box has $0.01 instead of $1000, you’re not thinking ”at least I got something”, and you just one-box. But if both boxes contain equal amounts, or you swap the amounts in each box, two-boxing is always better. All that to say, the idea that the right strategy here is to ”be the kind of person who one-boxes” isn’t a universe virtue. If the amounts change, the virtues change.
- danbruc 7mo ago
  A flawless predictor would indicate you’re in a simulation [...] No, it does not. Replace the human with a computer entering the room, the predictor analyzes the computer and the software running on the computer when it enters. If the decision program does not query a hardware random source or some stray cosmic particle changes the choice, the predictor could perfectly predict the choice just by accurately enough emulating the computer. If the program makes any use of external inputs, say the image from an attached webcam, the predictor also needs to know those inputs well enough. The same could, at least in principle, work for humans.
  - vidarh 7mo ago
    I agree with you that it doesn't require that you are in a simulation, but a flawless predictor would be a strong indication that a simulation is possible, and that should raise our assumed probability that we're in a simulation.
    - arethuza 7mo ago
      I would think that the existence of a flawless predictor is probably more likely to indicate that memories of predictions, and any associated records, have been modified to make the predictor appear flawless.
      - vidarh 7mo ago
        I would say that if we presume memories of everyone involved have been modified, that is an equally strong predictor that we are in a simulation.
        danbruc 7mo ago
        Where does this obsession with the simulation hypothesis come from, it has been so widespread in the last years? It is more or less pointless to think about it, it will not get you anywhere. You only know this universe, to some extend, but you have no idea what a real universe looks like and you have no idea what a simulated universe looks like, so you will never be able to tell which kind our universe is. But what if we discover that our universe is made from tiny voxels or something like that, that will be undeniable evidence, right? Wrong! Who says that real universes are not made of tiny voxels? It could be [1] the other way around, maybe real universes are discrete but their universe simulations are continuous, in which case the lack of tiny voxels in our universe would be the smoking gun evidence for being in a simulation. [1] This is meant as an example, I have no idea if one can actually come up with a discrete universe that admits continuous simulations, which probably should also be efficient in some sense.
ordu 7mo ago
> Which also renders the entire paradox somewhat moot because there is no choice for you to be made. Not quite. You did choose your decision making methods at some point in your life, and you could change them multiple times till you came to the setup of Newcomb's paradox. If we look at your past life as a variable in the problem, then changing this variable changes the outcome, it changes the prediction made by the predictor. > The existence of a flawless predictor means that you do not have a choice after the predictor made its prediction I believe, that if your definition of a choice stop working if we assume a deterministic Universe, then you need a better definition of a choice. In a deterministic Universe becomes glaringly obvious that all the framework of free will and choice is just an abstraction, that abstract away things that are not really needed to make a decision. Moreover I think I can hint how to deal with it: relativity. Different observers cannot agree if an observed agent has free will or not. Accept it fundamentally, like relativity accepts that the universal time doesn't exist, and all the logical paradoxes will go away.
- chriswarbo 7mo ago
  > I believe, that if your definition of a choice stop working if we assume a deterministic Universe, then you need a better definition of a choice. In a deterministic Universe becomes glaringly obvious that all the framework of free will and choice is just an abstraction, that abstract away things that are not really needed to make a decision. Indeed, I think of concepts like "agency", "choice", "free will", etc. as aspects of a particular sort of scientific model. That sort of model can make good predictions about people, organisations, etc. which would be intractable to many other approaches. It can also be useful in situations that we have more sophisticated models for, e.g. treating a physical system as "wanting" to minimise its energy can give a reasonable prediction of its behaviour very quickly. That sort of model has also been applied to systems where its predictive powers aren't very good; e.g. modelling weather, agriculture, etc. as being determined by some "will of the gods", and attempting to infer the desires of those gods based on their observed "choices". It baffles me that some people might think a model of this sort might have any relevance at a fundamental level.
- vidarh 7mo ago
  This is a compatibilist view. However, we can tell that most people don't adhere to a compatibilist view of free will because it tends to make people very upset if you suggest they have no "genuine" free will or agency, and the moral implications behind the assumption of genuine agency are e.g. baked into everything from our welfare systems to our justice systems, that assumes people have an actual choice in what they do. For that reason I strongly disagree with the compatibilist view - language is defined by use, and most people act in ways that clearly signal a non-compatibilist view of free will.

by danbruc 7mo ago

halfcat 7mo ago

A flawless predictor would indicate you’re in a simulation, but also we cannot even simulate multiple cells at the most fine-grained level of physics. But also you’re right that even a pretty good (but not perfect) predictor doesn’t change the scenario. What I find interesting is to change the amounts. If the open box has $0.01 instead of $1000, you’re not thinking ”at least I got something”, and you just one-box. But if both boxes contain equal amounts, or you swap the amounts in each box, two-boxing is always better. All that to say, the idea that the right strategy here is to ”be the kind of person who one-boxes” isn’t a universe virtue. If the amounts change, the virtues change.

danbruc 7mo ago
A flawless predictor would indicate you’re in a simulation [...] No, it does not. Replace the human with a computer entering the room, the predictor analyzes the computer and the software running on the computer when it enters. If the decision program does not query a hardware random source or some stray cosmic particle changes the choice, the predictor could perfectly predict the choice just by accurately enough emulating the computer. If the program makes any use of external inputs, say the image from an attached webcam, the predictor also needs to know those inputs well enough. The same could, at least in principle, work for humans.
- vidarh 7mo ago
  I agree with you that it doesn't require that you are in a simulation, but a flawless predictor would be a strong indication that a simulation is possible, and that should raise our assumed probability that we're in a simulation.
  - arethuza 7mo ago
    I would think that the existence of a flawless predictor is probably more likely to indicate that memories of predictions, and any associated records, have been modified to make the predictor appear flawless.
    - vidarh 7mo ago
      I would say that if we presume memories of everyone involved have been modified, that is an equally strong predictor that we are in a simulation.
      - danbruc 7mo ago
        Where does this obsession with the simulation hypothesis come from, it has been so widespread in the last years? It is more or less pointless to think about it, it will not get you anywhere. You only know this universe, to some extend, but you have no idea what a real universe looks like and you have no idea what a simulated universe looks like, so you will never be able to tell which kind our universe is. But what if we discover that our universe is made from tiny voxels or something like that, that will be undeniable evidence, right? Wrong! Who says that real universes are not made of tiny voxels? It could be [1] the other way around, maybe real universes are discrete but their universe simulations are continuous, in which case the lack of tiny voxels in our universe would be the smoking gun evidence for being in a simulation. [1] This is meant as an example, I have no idea if one can actually come up with a discrete universe that admits continuous simulations, which probably should also be efficient in some sense.

ordu 7mo ago

> Which also renders the entire paradox somewhat moot because there is no choice for you to be made. Not quite. You did choose your decision making methods at some point in your life, and you could change them multiple times till you came to the setup of Newcomb's paradox. If we look at your past life as a variable in the problem, then changing this variable changes the outcome, it changes the prediction made by the predictor. > The existence of a flawless predictor means that you do not have a choice after the predictor made its prediction I believe, that if your definition of a choice stop working if we assume a deterministic Universe, then you need a better definition of a choice. In a deterministic Universe becomes glaringly obvious that all the framework of free will and choice is just an abstraction, that abstract away things that are not really needed to make a decision. Moreover I think I can hint how to deal with it: relativity. Different observers cannot agree if an observed agent has free will or not. Accept it fundamentally, like relativity accepts that the universal time doesn't exist, and all the logical paradoxes will go away.

chriswarbo 7mo ago
> I believe, that if your definition of a choice stop working if we assume a deterministic Universe, then you need a better definition of a choice. In a deterministic Universe becomes glaringly obvious that all the framework of free will and choice is just an abstraction, that abstract away things that are not really needed to make a decision. Indeed, I think of concepts like "agency", "choice", "free will", etc. as aspects of a particular sort of scientific model. That sort of model can make good predictions about people, organisations, etc. which would be intractable to many other approaches. It can also be useful in situations that we have more sophisticated models for, e.g. treating a physical system as "wanting" to minimise its energy can give a reasonable prediction of its behaviour very quickly. That sort of model has also been applied to systems where its predictive powers aren't very good; e.g. modelling weather, agriculture, etc. as being determined by some "will of the gods", and attempting to infer the desires of those gods based on their observed "choices". It baffles me that some people might think a model of this sort might have any relevance at a fundamental level.
vidarh 7mo ago
This is a compatibilist view. However, we can tell that most people don't adhere to a compatibilist view of free will because it tends to make people very upset if you suggest they have no "genuine" free will or agency, and the moral implications behind the assumption of genuine agency are e.g. baked into everything from our welfare systems to our justice systems, that assumes people have an actual choice in what they do. For that reason I strongly disagree with the compatibilist view - language is defined by use, and most people act in ways that clearly signal a non-compatibilist view of free will.