Omega can be replaced by amnesia

Bongo

Let's play a game. Two times, I will give you an amnesia drug and let you enter a room with two boxes inside. Because of the drug, you won't know whether this is the first time you've entered the room. On the first time, both boxes will be empty. On the second time, box A contains $1000, and Box B contains $1,000,000 iff this is the second time and you took only box B the first time. You're in the room, do take both boxes or only box B?

This is equivalent to Newcomb's Problem in the sense that any strategy does equally well on both, where by "strategy" I mean a mapping from info to (probability distributions over) actions.

I suspect that any problem with Omega can be transformed into an equivalent problem with amnesia instead of Omega.

Does CDT return the winning answer in such transformed problems?

Discuss.

Let's play a game. Two times, I will give you an amnesia drug and let you enter a room with two boxes inside. Because of the drug, you won't know whether this is the first time you've entered the room. On the first time, both boxes will be empty. On the second time, box A contains $1000, and Box B contains $1,000,000 iff this is the second time and you took only box B the first time. You're in the room, do take both boxes or only box B?

This is equivalent to Newcomb's Problem in the sense that any strategy does equally well on both, where by "strategy" I mean a mapping from info to (probability distributions over) actions.

I suspect that any problem with Omega can be transformed into an equivalent problem with amnesia instead of Omega.

Does CDT return the winning answer in such transformed problems?

Discuss.

I don't see that the scenario is the same. If you one-box everytime in your thought experiment, you are guaranteed to get the million; if you two box everytime, you will certainly not get the million. With Omega, there is a high probability but not certainty.

Also, what you do in the first round causes what happens in the second round, but with Omega, it is debatable whether what you end up doing causes there to be a million dollars or not.

You won't one-box every time. There is always some chance, however small, that you will two-box, and vice versa.

1SRStarin15y

You point out perhaps the only potentially meaningful difference, and it is the main salient point in dispute between one-boxers and two-boxers in the Omega problem. First subpoint: With Omega, you are told (by Omega) that there is certainty--that he is never wrong--and you have a large but finite number of previous experiments that do not refute him. Any uncertainty is merely hoped for/dreaded. (There are versions in which there is definite uncertainty, but those are clearly not similar to the OP.) Second subpoint: If there is truly, really, actually no uncertainty, then correlation is perfect. It is hard to determine cause and effect in such conditions with no chance to design experiments to separate them. I'd argue that cause is a low-value concept in such a situation.

23

Omega can be replaced by amnesia

23

23

23

Omega can be replaced by amnesia

23

23