Would you still get the envelope if Omega wasn’t going to visit you? I had automatically assumed that Omega initiated the whole situation because the title said that Omega was subcontracting, but I see that the body doesn’t actually state that.
If that’s the scenario and if the only method Omega uses to ensure its prediction is accurate is selective visits your conclusion is obviously correct. I doubt there is anyone here who (correctly?) understood it that way and disagrees.
The main problem with such thought experiments is understanding them correctly (or better, having your formal decision theory represent them correctly), from where the conclusion usually follows trivially. Just try convincing a game theorist to cooperate in Prisoner’s dilemma, even experimental observations contradicting the theory of rational defection won’t help.
Would you still get the envelope if Omega wasn’t going to visit you? I had automatically assumed that Omega initiated the whole situation because the title said that Omega was subcontracting, but I see that the body doesn’t actually state that.
Edited to make this clear
Yes, this seems to be assumed, though it didn’t actually happen this way, Omega did visit you.
If that’s the scenario and if the only method Omega uses to ensure its prediction is accurate is selective visits your conclusion is obviously correct. I doubt there is anyone here who (correctly?) understood it that way and disagrees.
The main problem with such thought experiments is understanding them correctly (or better, having your formal decision theory represent them correctly), from where the conclusion usually follows trivially. Just try convincing a game theorist to cooperate in Prisoner’s dilemma, even experimental observations contradicting the theory of rational defection won’t help.