However, decisions made by identical twins (and other systems with shared inner workings) aren’t independent. Not because of some kind of spooky backwards-in-time-causation, but because both decisions depend on the genetic makeup of the twins—which was jointly determined by the mother long ago.
Then again, in the chewing-gum variant of the smoking lesion problem, your decision whether to chew gum and your genetic propensity to get throat abscesses aren’t independent either. But everybody would agree that choosing to chew is still the right choice, wouldn’t they?
I don’t think that affects my point (which was that considering decisions made by different agents to be “independent” of each other is not a consequence of common-sense scientific causality). The idea seems to be coming from somewhere else—but where?
Then again, in the chewing-gum variant of the smoking lesion problem, your decision whether to chew gum and your genetic propensity to get throat abscesses aren’t independent either. But everybody would agree that choosing to chew is still the right choice, wouldn’t they?
I don’t think that affects my point (which was that considering decisions made by different agents to be “independent” of each other is not a consequence of common-sense scientific causality). The idea seems to be coming from somewhere else—but where?