Newcomb’s Problem creates an apparent conflict between 1) Dominance: pick the choice that never leaves you worse off 2) EV: pick the choice that maximizes your EV
Intuitively the dominance principle is more fundamental, and indeed it’s correct: EVM doesn’t mean you should do things that increase evidential probability 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘰. And you can’t change the fixed past.
People who one-box are often interpreting the situation as if from an imagined earlier stage, similar to people who interpret the organ-transplant problem from an earlier stage of “deciding societal rules.” (Some have more exotic theories like causing things to happen backward in time.)
So the answer to the scenario is that the agent should two box—unrelatedly, if a different thought experiment presented you with the choice to “commit” (whatever that means) to one-boxing in such a scenario, then you should take that option.
Yeah, the most interesting Newcomb’s problem is the one where you learn about it for the first time after encountering it. And you obviously should one box, duh.
Also note, that committing to one boxing, under causal point of view, makes sense not for the Newcomb’s problems you encounter later, but only for Newcomb’s problems where Omega inspected you after the date of commitment, which becomes a magic number. Kinda weird? If you work by commitments, why not commit to one boxing in general?
Why is it obvious that you should one-box? Two-boxing is the dominant strategy.
It’s not clear what a “commitment” is this context. Usually people talk about “commitment devices” which constrain your options or change your future incentives, but just saying “I commit to one-boxing” doesn’t do anything like that.
Maybe principle of dominance gives wrong action recommendations in some situations? How do you evaluate your principles?
That’s not the point? The point is, you would commit to “check on what date hour and minute Omega looked at me and one box if after, two box if before”, with whatever method you have you can constrain your future actions. Which is kinda crazy, like, just commit to one boxing if you are into commitments.
I don’t see why the principle of dominance would give the wrong action. It just says that you should take an action if it is never improved by another action regardless of other actors.
Well, you can consider some situations and think, does it give good recommendation in them? If not, maybe it’s a motivation to start the search for other principles?
Here is one, even more exaggerated:
Imagine even stronger predictor. It offers you 20 Newcomb’s games in a row. And the predictor is already gone, dead etc. For simplicity boxes you didn’t take burst into flames or something. CDT agent will not experiment with this and just straight up two box 20 times in a row. Where as normal humans would pick one box some of the time, see it gives them more money and switch their strategy.
Like, what percent of humans would two box 20 times in a row you think? Like, 0.1%? Some philosophy professors among them apparently.
Newcomb’s Problem creates an apparent conflict between
1) Dominance: pick the choice that never leaves you worse off
2) EV: pick the choice that maximizes your EV
Intuitively the dominance principle is more fundamental, and indeed it’s correct: EVM doesn’t mean you should do things that increase evidential probability 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘰. And you can’t change the fixed past.
People who one-box are often interpreting the situation as if from an imagined earlier stage, similar to people who interpret the organ-transplant problem from an earlier stage of “deciding societal rules.” (Some have more exotic theories like causing things to happen backward in time.)
So the answer to the scenario is that the agent should two box—unrelatedly, if a different thought experiment presented you with the choice to “commit” (whatever that means) to one-boxing in such a scenario, then you should take that option.
Some further reading:
Michael Huemer, 2021 — “The Solution to Newcomb’s Problem”
@basil.halperin, 2022 — “Newcomb’s problem is just a standard time consistency problem”
Yeah, the most interesting Newcomb’s problem is the one where you learn about it for the first time after encountering it. And you obviously should one box, duh.
Also note, that committing to one boxing, under causal point of view, makes sense not for the Newcomb’s problems you encounter later, but only for Newcomb’s problems where Omega inspected you after the date of commitment, which becomes a magic number. Kinda weird? If you work by commitments, why not commit to one boxing in general?
Why is it obvious that you should one-box? Two-boxing is the dominant strategy.
It’s not clear what a “commitment” is this context. Usually people talk about “commitment devices” which constrain your options or change your future incentives, but just saying “I commit to one-boxing” doesn’t do anything like that.
Maybe principle of dominance gives wrong action recommendations in some situations? How do you evaluate your principles?
That’s not the point? The point is, you would commit to “check on what date hour and minute Omega looked at me and one box if after, two box if before”, with whatever method you have you can constrain your future actions. Which is kinda crazy, like, just commit to one boxing if you are into commitments.
I don’t see why the principle of dominance would give the wrong action. It just says that you should take an action if it is never improved by another action regardless of other actors.
Well, you can consider some situations and think, does it give good recommendation in them? If not, maybe it’s a motivation to start the search for other principles?
Here is one, even more exaggerated:
Imagine even stronger predictor. It offers you 20 Newcomb’s games in a row. And the predictor is already gone, dead etc. For simplicity boxes you didn’t take burst into flames or something. CDT agent will not experiment with this and just straight up two box 20 times in a row. Where as normal humans would pick one box some of the time, see it gives them more money and switch their strategy.
Like, what percent of humans would two box 20 times in a row you think? Like, 0.1%? Some philosophy professors among them apparently.