There is no distinction between these. How do you construct this hypothetical lookup table? By applying decision theory to every possible future history. In other words, by applying option 1 to calculate out everything in advance. But why bother? Applying option 1 as events unfold will produce results identical to applying it to all possible futures now, and avoids the small problem of requiring vastly more computational resources than the universe is capable of holding, running extraordinarily faster than anything is capable of happening, and operating for gigantically longer than the universe will exist, before you can do anything.
I’m not convinced that the absentminded driver problem has such implications. Its straightforward (to me) resolution is that the optimal p is 2⁄3 by the obvious analysis, and that the driver cannot use alpha as a probability, for reasons set out here.
But I’d rather not get into a discussion of self-referential decision theory, since it doesn’t currently exist.
There is no distinction between these. How do you construct this hypothetical lookup table? By applying decision theory to every possible future history. In other words, by applying option 1 to calculate out everything in advance. But why bother? Applying option 1 as events unfold will produce results identical to applying it to all possible futures now, and avoids the small problem of requiring vastly more computational resources than the universe is capable of holding, running extraordinarily faster than anything is capable of happening, and operating for gigantically longer than the universe will exist, before you can do anything.
Calculating the locally optimal action without any reference to plans can sometimes get you different results—see the absentminded driver problem.
I’m not convinced that the absentminded driver problem has such implications. Its straightforward (to me) resolution is that the optimal p is 2⁄3 by the obvious analysis, and that the driver cannot use alpha as a probability, for reasons set out here.
But I’d rather not get into a discussion of self-referential decision theory, since it doesn’t currently exist.