I spoke with someone recently who admitted that Newcomb’s 1-boxers walk away from the problem with more money on average than 2-boxers, yet somehow still argued for 2-boxing.
This doesn’t seem like a knock-down argument against 2-boxing.
Meta-level: the fact that 1-boxers walk away with more money on average is ~explicit in the problem statement. So if you know that 2-boxers exist, but you’re surprised to see 2-boxing coexist with acknowledgement of the fact that 1-boxers walk away with more money on average, then you’re probably modelling 2-boxers wrongly.
Object-level: some 2-boxers reject compatibilism. To the extent that their choice is deterministic and fully predictable, they don’t see it as an exercise of free will. The argument runs something like:
If determinism is true, then the two possibilities are [I 1-box and the history of the universe and laws of physics are such that I inevitably 1-box] and [I 2-box and the history of the universe and laws of physics are such that I inevitably 2-box].
I definitely can’t freely choose what the history of the universe or laws of physics are.
So, if determinism is true, then I don’t have a free choice between 1-boxing and 2-boxing.
So they decide that the possible world in which they are perfectly predictable is irrelevant. To whatever extent they do have free will, they will exercise it to take the extra $1000.
This doesn’t seem like a knock-down argument against 2-boxing.
How not?
Meta-level: the fact that 1-boxers walk away with more money on average is ~explicit in the problem statement. So if you know that 2-boxers exist, but you’re surprised to see 2-boxing coexist with acknowledgement of the fact that 1-boxers walk away with more money on average, then you’re probably modelling 2-boxers wrongly.
Object-level: some 2-boxers reject compatibilism. To the extent that their choice is deterministic and fully predictable, they don’t see it as an exercise of free will. The argument runs something like:
If determinism is true, then the two possibilities are [I 1-box and the history of the universe and laws of physics are such that I inevitably 1-box] and [I 2-box and the history of the universe and laws of physics are such that I inevitably 2-box].
I definitely can’t freely choose what the history of the universe or laws of physics are.
So, if determinism is true, then I don’t have a free choice between 1-boxing and 2-boxing.
So they decide that the possible world in which they are perfectly predictable is irrelevant. To whatever extent they do have free will, they will exercise it to take the extra $1000.
Both meta-level and object-level make great points, thank you!