Cant you make the same argument you make in Schwarz procreation by using Parfits hitchhiker after you have reached the city? In which case i think its better to use that example, as it avoids the Heighns criticism.
In the case of implausible discontinuities i agree with Heighn that there is no subjunctive dependence.
Here is a quick diagram of the causation in the thought experiment as i understand it. We have an outcome which is completely determined by your decision to one box/two box and the predictor decision of whether to but money in the one box. The Predictor decides based on the presence of a lesion (or some other physical fact) Your decision how many boxes to take is determined by your decision theory. And your decision theory is partly determined by the Lesion and partly by other stuff.
Now (my understanding of) the claim is that there is no downstream path from your decision theory to the predictor. This means that applying the do operator on the decision theory node doesn’t change the distribution of the choices of the predictor.
You can make it with Parfit’s hitchiker, but in that case there’s an action before hand and so a time when you have the ability to try to be rational.
There is a path from the decision theory to the predictor, because the predictor looks at your brain—with the decision theory it will make—and bases the decision on the outputs of that cognitive algorithm.
I don’t think the quoted problem has that structure.
And suppose that the existence of S tends to cause both (i) one-boxing tendencies and (ii) whether there’s money in the opaque box or not when decision-makers face Newcomb problems.
But now suppose that the pathway by which S causes there to be money in the opaque box or not is that another agent looks at S
So S causes one boxing tendencies, and the person putting money in the box looks only at S.
So it seems to be changing the problem to say that the predictor observes your brain/your decision procedure. When all they observe is S which, while causing “one boxing tendencies”, is not causally downstream of your decision theory.
Further if S where downstream of your decision procedure, then fdt one boxes whether or not the path from the decision procedure to the contents of the boxes routes through an agent. Undermining the criticism that fst has implausible discontinuities.
Cant you make the same argument you make in Schwarz procreation by using Parfits hitchhiker after you have reached the city? In which case i think its better to use that example, as it avoids the Heighns criticism.
In the case of implausible discontinuities i agree with Heighn that there is no subjunctive dependence.
Here is a quick diagram of the causation in the thought experiment as i understand it.
We have an outcome which is completely determined by your decision to one box/two box and the predictor decision of whether to but money in the one box.
The Predictor decides based on the presence of a lesion (or some other physical fact)
Your decision how many boxes to take is determined by your decision theory.
And your decision theory is partly determined by the Lesion and partly by other stuff.
Now (my understanding of) the claim is that there is no downstream path from your decision theory to the predictor. This means that applying the do operator on the decision theory node doesn’t change the distribution of the choices of the predictor.
You can make it with Parfit’s hitchiker, but in that case there’s an action before hand and so a time when you have the ability to try to be rational.
There is a path from the decision theory to the predictor, because the predictor looks at your brain—with the decision theory it will make—and bases the decision on the outputs of that cognitive algorithm.
I don’t think the quoted problem has that structure.
So S causes one boxing tendencies, and the person putting money in the box looks only at S.
So it seems to be changing the problem to say that the predictor observes your brain/your decision procedure. When all they observe is S which, while causing “one boxing tendencies”, is not causally downstream of your decision theory.
Further if S where downstream of your decision procedure, then fdt one boxes whether or not the path from the decision procedure to the contents of the boxes routes through an agent. Undermining the criticism that fst has implausible discontinuities.