[SEQ RERUN] Newcomb’s Problem and Regret of Rationality
Today’s post, Newcomb’s Problem and Regret of Rationality was originally published on 31 January 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
Newcomb’s problem is a very famous decision theory problem in which the rational move appears to be consistently punished. This is the wrong attitude to take. Rationalists should win. If your particular ritual of cognition consistently fails to yield good results, change the ritual.
Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we’ll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky’s old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Something to Protect, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day’s sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.
POLL: Grognor and Alexflint have both said that they would like to change the policy of discussing the sequence_rerun posts in the discussion posts. Instead, discussions would take place in the comments sections of the original posts. I will run this poll for approximately one week, and announce the results when I post the sequence rerun next Tuesday evening (sometime after 10 PM, Central Standard Time).
Upvote the comment corresponding to whatever policy you would prefer, and then downvote the comment labeled “Karma balance”.
Change the policy so that we discuss the sequence posts in the comments section of the original posts.
Continue to discuss the sequence posts on the rerun post (in the discussion section).
Karma Balance