However, if the aspirin group was healthy and most of other group had cancer, then this wouldn’t be a fair test.
But if you don’t know it seems like “fair” test—you just find out it was (probably) a useless test if you later find out they had cancer. Which you don’t unless unless you follow up. So “fair” tests without follow ups might be wrong.
1) Suppose you have the option to choose one of two boxes: the first containing 5 utility and the second containing 10 utility. Almost no-one would dispute that these counterfactuals are comparable, but why?
Because it’s...determined. In advance.
“If you try to eat something that is inedible people aren’t surprised if that goes badly.”
“Perhaps because they’ve done it, or seen it done.”
It seems like a straightforward choice. You can choose 5 or 10, and what you choose is what you get. You know what the result of those 2 choices are. (Although it isn’t clear how/why you can only choose 1/one of those options. If there are 2 boxes with 5 utility each in them, then someone who takes both boxes gets 10 utility...)
2) As discussed above, a casual decision theorist would likely argue that the counterfactuals constructed by a timeless decision theorist aren’t comparable because the 1-boxer has $1 million in the mystery box, while the two-boxer’s box is empty. Most people on Less Wrong think that the casual decision theorist is wrong. How can we respond to this claim? Does it satisfy another notion of comparability or does this show the notion of comparability is irrelevant?
3) An evidential decision theorist would smoke in the Smoking Lesion problem so they don’t get cancer. Most people argue that they are incorrect because when evaluating smoking we can’t compare a group of people predisposed to cancer to a normal group of people. Is this correct? And if so, does this mean the 1-boxer is correct in rejecting timeless decision theory counterfactuals as non-comparable? (There have been criticisms of the Smoking Lesion problem, but I think we could just make the same argument with Counterfactual Blackmail instead).
Don’t think I’ve met either of these. Probably because those are hypotheticals—which might violate intuitive ideas around counterfactuals.
Maybe the OB considers the “I am a TB” ‘counterfactual’, and the TB considers the “I take two boxes, and both of them have cash in it” ‘counterfactual’.
I’m not so familiar with the Smoking Lesion problem that your comments on it are immediately transparent, but where to draw the boundaries is it’s own problem, and might be a source of disagreement between forecasters/etc.
But if you don’t know it seems like “fair” test—you just find out it was (probably) a useless test if you later find out they had cancer. Which you don’t unless unless you follow up. So “fair” tests without follow ups might be wrong.
Because it’s...determined. In advance.
“If you try to eat something that is inedible people aren’t surprised if that goes badly.”
“Perhaps because they’ve done it, or seen it done.”
It seems like a straightforward choice. You can choose 5 or 10, and what you choose is what you get. You know what the result of those 2 choices are. (Although it isn’t clear how/why you can only choose 1/one of those options. If there are 2 boxes with 5 utility each in them, then someone who takes both boxes gets 10 utility...)
Don’t think I’ve met either of these. Probably because those are hypotheticals—which might violate intuitive ideas around counterfactuals.
Maybe the OB considers the “I am a TB” ‘counterfactual’, and the TB considers the “I take two boxes, and both of them have cash in it” ‘counterfactual’.
I’m not so familiar with the Smoking Lesion problem that your comments on it are immediately transparent, but where to draw the boundaries is it’s own problem, and might be a source of disagreement between forecasters/etc.