I think I prefer the “throwing away expensive things” formulation to the “smoking lesion” formulation.
In the smoking lesion, it’s not clear whether the lesion causes smoking by modifying your preferences or modifying your decision algorithm. But if it’s the latter, asking “what would decision theory X do?” is pointless since people with the lesion aren’t using decision theory X. And if it’s due to preferences, you already know you have the lesion when you get to the part of the problem that says you’d prefer to smoke.
So actually it’s like your throwing-things-away problem, except that you can look at your bank balance, except obfuscated behind a layer of free-will-like confusion.
I think I prefer the “throwing away expensive things” formulation to the “smoking lesion” formulation.
In the smoking lesion, it’s not clear whether the lesion causes smoking by modifying your preferences or modifying your decision algorithm. But if it’s the latter, asking “what would decision theory X do?” is pointless since people with the lesion aren’t using decision theory X. And if it’s due to preferences, you already know you have the lesion when you get to the part of the problem that says you’d prefer to smoke.
So actually it’s like your throwing-things-away problem, except that you can look at your bank balance, except obfuscated behind a layer of free-will-like confusion.