whpearson comments on A problem with Timeless Decision Theory (TDT) - Less Wrong
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Comments (127)
Actually, you're in a different camp than Laura: she agrees that it's incorrect to two-box regardless of any preference you have about the specified digit of pi. :)
The easiest way to see why two-boxing is wrong is to imagine a large number of trials, with a different chooser, and a different value of i, for each trial. Suppose each chooser strongly prefers that their trial's particular digit of pi be zero. The proportion of two-boxer simulations that end up with the digit equal to zero is no different than the proportion of one-boxer simulations that end up with the digit equal to zero (both are approximately .1). But the proportion of the one-boxer simulations that end up with an actual $1M is much higher (.9) than the proportion of two-boxer simulations that end up with an actual $1M (.1).
Have some Omega thought experiments been one shot, never to be repeated type deals or is my memory incorrect?
Yes I wasn't thinking through what would happen when the ith digit wasn't 0. You can't switch to one boxing in that case because you don't know when that would be, or rather when you see an empty box you are forced to do the same as when you see a full box due to the way the game is set up.
Yes, and that's the intent in this example as well. Still, it can be useful to look at the expected distribution of outcomes over a large enough number of trials that have the same structure, in order to infer the (counterfactual) probabilities that apply to a single trial.
Yes, they have. And most can be formulated as such as long as p(Omega is honest) is given as 'high' somewhere.