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John_Maxwell_IV comments on Confusion about Newcomb is confusion about counterfactuals - Less Wrong
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That's not true. Humans are often indecisive. Humans are bad at changing their minds when they stand to lose face by doing so. They're good at changing their minds about what sort of peanut butter to buy from the grocery store.
The idea of using possible loss of face to ensure the compliance of my future self does not appeal to me much.
Since the trustworthy bystander's world-surgery occurs after the brain scan, modifying Joe into a two-boxer will help him make more money. I believe this was discussed in the post. Do you disagree with this? How is the trustworthy bystander confused about the problem if he does what I suggest?
The trustworthy bystander is confused about the problem because you are, and he is doing what you suggest.
Please respond to that part of my post. If you believe that the trustworthy bystander's advice will cause Joe to lose money, please explain how.
Edit: Assume that Omega has not scanned the brain of the trustworthy bystander, because the story does not describe him scanning it.
I cannot respond to that part of your reply.
You may want to read up on this problem once again. Omega is not about scanning Joe's brain, it is about more generally -predicting Joe's response to the offer-.
This is the key. Omega is by definition able to predict the final choice of one- vs two-boxing. No, the trustworthy bystander cannot be excluded from the prediction. Neither can a poster behind the boxes reading "TAKE BOTH BOXES" or anything else of the sort.
Please re-read previous discussions about Newcomb as they explain why one-boxing is the correct answer in a far better way than I can.
I think it might help if you did, because I'm not entirely sure what you think.
In the story, Omega only has access to the content of Joe's brain, not the bystander's. So the bystander grants Joe no advantage by deciding in advance to encourage him to one-box, since Omega won't have known that the bystander has decided this in advance.
Omega will assume that a benevolent and unscanned bystander will encourage Joe to two-box and there's really nothing the bystander can do about it. As long as you're assumed to be an irrevocable criminal, you might as well commit crimes. As long as you're assumed to encourage two-boxing, you might as well encourage two-boxing. There's no advantage presented by encouraging one-boxing.
You're talking about a story different than the one Anna Salamon presented. I agree that the bystander should encourage Joe to one-box in the modification you present. I'm also willing to accept that this is probably a "more pure" version of the problem, which Anna Salamon might be wishing she had written up instead. But I think the bystander remaining unscanned is an interesting special case.
If the bystander wants to maximize Joe's income, he should encourage Joe to one-box if and only if Omega scans the bystander's brain.
There are some simplifying assumptions you need to make for the problem to work. Joe is not allowed to use or be influenced by information Omega doesn't have, or else Omega can't make the prediction with accuracy.
That you will change your mind in response to bystander's advice is the property of your mind. If the bystander is very very unexpected (by Omega), then maybe this will work. If the bystander is a priori expected to give this advice, and you are expected to heed the advice if it's given, then this means that you are expected to two-box, and thus won't get the million.