Again, what is DBDT to do in Drescher’s counterexample? All the author says is that he doesn’t consider that case in the paper, or possibly considers it lying outside the scope of his decision theory. TDT and UDT can deal with that case, and give the right answer, whereas DBDT, if applied in that (perhaps unintended) case, gives the wrong answer.
What I think is that cases where such situations would arise are corner cases of rather low practical significance...
...but yes, if you really believed that an all powerful agent took a snapshot of the universe before you were born, successfully predicted your dispositions from it and made important decisions based on the results, then the obvious way to deal with that within DBDT would be to put the “critical point” early on (the paper is pretty clear about the need to do this), and consider that the dynamical system before your creation had dispositions that must have causally led to your own dispositions. A “disposition” is treated as just a propensity to behave in a particular way in particular circumstances—so is quite a general concept.
Again, what is DBDT to do in Drescher’s counterexample? All the author says is that he doesn’t consider that case in the paper, or possibly considers it lying outside the scope of his decision theory. TDT and UDT can deal with that case, and give the right answer, whereas DBDT, if applied in that (perhaps unintended) case, gives the wrong answer.
You are not being very clear. Where does the author say either of those things?
In the passages you quoted.
AFAICS, the author does not say anything like: “that he doesn’t consider that case in the paper”.
He doesn’t say anything like that he: “possibly considers it lying outside the scope of his decision theory” either.
Do you believe that DBDT can place a critical point at the time/situation where the agent doesn’t exist?
What I think is that cases where such situations would arise are corner cases of rather low practical significance...
...but yes, if you really believed that an all powerful agent took a snapshot of the universe before you were born, successfully predicted your dispositions from it and made important decisions based on the results, then the obvious way to deal with that within DBDT would be to put the “critical point” early on (the paper is pretty clear about the need to do this), and consider that the dynamical system before your creation had dispositions that must have causally led to your own dispositions. A “disposition” is treated as just a propensity to behave in a particular way in particular circumstances—so is quite a general concept.