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You're using a mathematical model that doesn't apply. The ahead-of-time simulations invalidate the idea that your decision can't affect the outcome, despite the

You're using a mathematical model that doesn't apply. The ahead-of-time simulations invalidate the idea that your decision can't affect the outcome, despite the final decision ultimately occurring afterwards. An analogy would be asserting that you can't possibly shoot yourself in the back of the head when firing into the distance, and sticking to that position even after finding out you're in a pac-man-style loop-around world. A much closer but more technical analogy is that you can't solve imperfect information games by recursively solving subtrees in isolation. Optimal play can involve purposefully losing in some subtrees, so that bluffs are more effective in other subtrees. The fact that you are doing worse by two-boxing, leaving with a thousand dollars instead of a million, despite following logic that's supposed to maximize how well you do, should be a huge red flag.

empthought 12y ago
How do "the ahead-of-time simulations invalidate the idea that your decision can't affect the outcome, despite the final decision ultimately occurring afterwards?" They're only simulations. The predictor is defined as being very likely to have correct predictions; it's not defined as God or a time traveler or an omniscient computer with knowledge of the universe's intricate workings. The fact that to an observer who knows the contents of the boxes (say, the moderator or an audience) you always look like an idiot for taking only one box and leaving money on the table, should be a huge red flag.
- Retric 12y ago
  But that's the thing you assume there something different about you and simulated you where in theory there might not be. In other words if your hard coding something then hard coding pick B gets you 1,000,000 but hard coding pick AB gets you 1,000 assuming the predictor looks at your source code. As to the game show you would gave a series of people where people who pick B get 1,000,000 and people who pick AB get 1,000 now which group looks like idiots? Edit: Depending on the accuracy of the predictions, it's less about information traveling into the past as it is being the type of person that chooses B.
  - empthought 12y ago
    I don't know why you're talking about hard-coding and simulation and whatnot. The mechanism that the predictor uses is completely irrelevant and specifically defined to be unknown in the thought experiment description, aside from it disallowing backwards causality and things like time travel. Every single person who picked only box B left $1000 on the table. That's a bare fact. You don't even need to know or care what the prediction is to know that. In general when someone leaves $1000 that they could have had, no strings attached, that's a less desirable outcome than the one where they had the extra $1000.
    - Retric 12y ago
      Your assuming it's impossible to accurately predict what someone would chose when it's directly stated they can. If your the kind of person that picks AB then you get 1,000. If your the kind of person that picks B you get 1,000,000. There are no other options. PS: Consider, the 'prediction' is having you walk on stage and given the choice a random number of times greater than 20. Except, one of them will be randomly the one that counts.
      - empthought 12y ago
        I'm not saying it's impossible to predict anything. I'm saying that people whose choose box B are always choosing the inferior of the two options available to them, because the money is already on the table and no one is going to change that configuration based on the person's choice (stated in the problem). As I have said, the prediction method or accuracy is largely irrelevant to the actual paradox, aside from a means to incentivize people to behave in an obviously irrational way :). (I don't really think that, the other principle of decision for one-boxers is induction based on prior observations. The whole point of the paradox is neither side has a decisive argument against the other. The important point here is that free will/determinism, possibility of perfect simulation, etc. are not part of the problem this paradox is intended to illuminate.)
        Retric 12y ago

empthought 12y ago

How do "the ahead-of-time simulations invalidate the idea that your decision can't affect the outcome, despite the final decision ultimately occurring afterwards?" They're only simulations. The predictor is defined as being very likely to have correct predictions; it's not defined as God or a time traveler or an omniscient computer with knowledge of the universe's intricate workings. The fact that to an observer who knows the contents of the boxes (say, the moderator or an audience) you always look like an idiot for taking only one box and leaving money on the table, should be a huge red flag.

Retric 12y ago
But that's the thing you assume there something different about you and simulated you where in theory there might not be. In other words if your hard coding something then hard coding pick B gets you 1,000,000 but hard coding pick AB gets you 1,000 assuming the predictor looks at your source code. As to the game show you would gave a series of people where people who pick B get 1,000,000 and people who pick AB get 1,000 now which group looks like idiots? Edit: Depending on the accuracy of the predictions, it's less about information traveling into the past as it is being the type of person that chooses B.
- empthought 12y ago
  I don't know why you're talking about hard-coding and simulation and whatnot. The mechanism that the predictor uses is completely irrelevant and specifically defined to be unknown in the thought experiment description, aside from it disallowing backwards causality and things like time travel. Every single person who picked only box B left $1000 on the table. That's a bare fact. You don't even need to know or care what the prediction is to know that. In general when someone leaves $1000 that they could have had, no strings attached, that's a less desirable outcome than the one where they had the extra $1000.
  - Retric 12y ago
    Your assuming it's impossible to accurately predict what someone would chose when it's directly stated they can. If your the kind of person that picks AB then you get 1,000. If your the kind of person that picks B you get 1,000,000. There are no other options. PS: Consider, the 'prediction' is having you walk on stage and given the choice a random number of times greater than 20. Except, one of them will be randomly the one that counts.
    - empthought 12y ago
      I'm not saying it's impossible to predict anything. I'm saying that people whose choose box B are always choosing the inferior of the two options available to them, because the money is already on the table and no one is going to change that configuration based on the person's choice (stated in the problem). As I have said, the prediction method or accuracy is largely irrelevant to the actual paradox, aside from a means to incentivize people to behave in an obviously irrational way :). (I don't really think that, the other principle of decision for one-boxers is induction based on prior observations. The whole point of the paradox is neither side has a decisive argument against the other. The important point here is that free will/determinism, possibility of perfect simulation, etc. are not part of the problem this paradox is intended to illuminate.)
      - Retric 12y ago