There is a distinction in the correlation, but it’s somewhat subtle and I don’t fully understand it myself. One silly way to think about it that might be helpful is “how much does the past hinge on your decision?” In smoker’s lesion, it is clear the past is very fixed—even if you decide to not to smoke, that doesn’t affect the genetic code. But in Newcomb’s, the past hinges heavily on your decision: if you decide to one-box, it must have been the case that you could have been predicted to one-box, so it’s logically impossible for it to have gone the other way.
One intermediate example would be if Omega told you they had predicted you to two-box, and you had reason to fully trust this. In this case, I’m pretty sure you’d want to two-box, then immediately precommit to one-boxing in the future. (In this case, the past no longer hinges on your decision.) Another would be if Omega was predicting from your genetic code, which supposedly correlated highly with your decision but was causally separate. In this case, I think you again want to two-box if you have sufficient metacognition that you can actually uncorrelate your decision from genetics, but I’m not sure what you’d do if you can’t uncorrelate. (The difference again lies in how much Omega’s decision hinges on your actual decision.)
Yeah, FDT has a notion of subjunctive dependence. But the question becomes what does this mean? What precisely is the difference between the smoking lesion and Newcombs? I have some ideas and maybe I’ll write them up at some point.
Does FDT make this any clearer for you?
There is a distinction in the correlation, but it’s somewhat subtle and I don’t fully understand it myself. One silly way to think about it that might be helpful is “how much does the past hinge on your decision?” In smoker’s lesion, it is clear the past is very fixed—even if you decide to not to smoke, that doesn’t affect the genetic code. But in Newcomb’s, the past hinges heavily on your decision: if you decide to one-box, it must have been the case that you could have been predicted to one-box, so it’s logically impossible for it to have gone the other way.
One intermediate example would be if Omega told you they had predicted you to two-box, and you had reason to fully trust this. In this case, I’m pretty sure you’d want to two-box, then immediately precommit to one-boxing in the future. (In this case, the past no longer hinges on your decision.) Another would be if Omega was predicting from your genetic code, which supposedly correlated highly with your decision but was causally separate. In this case, I think you again want to two-box if you have sufficient metacognition that you can actually uncorrelate your decision from genetics, but I’m not sure what you’d do if you can’t uncorrelate. (The difference again lies in how much Omega’s decision hinges on your actual decision.)
Yeah, FDT has a notion of subjunctive dependence. But the question becomes what does this mean? What precisely is the difference between the smoking lesion and Newcombs? I have some ideas and maybe I’ll write them up at some point.