I suspect this is a confusion about free will. To be concrete, I think that a thermostat has a causal influence on the future, and does not violate determinism. It deterministically observes a sensor, and either turns on a heater or a cooler based on that sensor, in a way that does not flow backwards—turning on the heater manually will not affect the thermostat’s attempted actions except indirectly through the eventual effect on the sensor.
Fair point :) What I meant was that for every world history, there is only one causal influence I could possibly have on the future. But CDT reasons through counterfactuals that are physically impossible (e.g. two-boxing in a world where there is money in box A), because it combines world states with actions it wouldn’t take in those worlds. EDT just assumes that it’s choosing between different histories, which is kind of “magical”, but at least all those histories are internally consistent. Interestingly, e.g. Proof-Based DT would probably amount to the same kind of reasoning? Anyway, it’s probably a weak point if at all, and I fully agree that the issue is orthogonal to the DT question!
I basically agree with everything else you write, and I don’t think it contradicts my main points.
Fair point :) What I meant was that for every world history, there is only one causal influence I could possibly have on the future. But CDT reasons through counterfactuals that are physically impossible (e.g. two-boxing in a world where there is money in box A), because it combines world states with actions it wouldn’t take in those worlds. EDT just assumes that it’s choosing between different histories, which is kind of “magical”, but at least all those histories are internally consistent. Interestingly, e.g. Proof-Based DT would probably amount to the same kind of reasoning? Anyway, it’s probably a weak point if at all, and I fully agree that the issue is orthogonal to the DT question!
I basically agree with everything else you write, and I don’t think it contradicts my main points.