Comment on Confusion about Newcomb is confusion about counterfactuals

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 08:28:42 GMT

I cannot respond to that part of your reply.

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.

Omega is by definition able to predict the final choice of one- vs two-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.

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