Two more questions. As in the original scenario, but instead of an unreliable calculator, you have a reliable (so far) theorem prover. Type in a proposition to be proved and hit the "ProveIt" button, and immediately the display shows "Working". Then, an unpredictable amount of time later, the display may change to show either "Proven" or "Disproven". So, the base case here is that you type "Q is even" into the device and hit "ProveIt". You plan to only allow 5 minutes for the device to find a proof, and then to just guess, but fortunately the display changes to "Proven" in 4 minutes. But then just as you finish writing "Even" on your test paper, Omega appears.
This time, Omega asks you to consider the counterfactual world in which the device still shows "Working" after 5 minutes. Should counter-factual Omega still write "Even" on the test?
In a different Omega-suggested counterfactual world, a black swan flies in the window after 4 1/2 minutes and the display shows "Disproven". You know that this means that either a). Arithmetic is inconsistent. b). The theorem prover device is unreliable. or c). Omega is messing with you. Does thinking about this situation cause you to change your answer to the previous question?
My opinion: Evidence, counter-evidence, and lack of evidence have no effect on the truth of necessary statements. They only impact the subjective probability of those statements. And subjective probabilities cannot flow backward in time (surviving the erasure of the evidence that produced those subjective probabilities). Even Omega cannot mediate this kind of paradoxical information flow.
This time, Omega asks you to consider the counterfactual world in which the device still shows "Working" after 5 minutes. Should counter-factual Omega still write "Even" on the test?
It should write whatever you would write if you observed no answer, in this case we have indifference between the answers (betting with confidence 50%).
...In a different Omega-suggested counterfactual world, a black swan flies in the window after 4 1/2 minutes and the display shows "Disproven". You know that this means that either a). Arithmetic
Consider the following thought experiment ("Counterfactual Calculation"):
Should you write "even" on the counterfactual test sheet, given that you're 99% sure that the answer is "even"?
This thought experiment contrasts "logical knowledge" (the usual kind) and "observational knowledge" (what you get when you look at a calculator display). The kind of knowledge you obtain by observing things is not like the kind of knowledge you obtain by thinking yourself. What is the difference (if there actually is a difference)? Why does observational knowledge work in your own possible worlds, but not in counterfactuals? How much of logical knowledge is like observational knowledge, and what are the conditions of its applicability? Can things that we consider "logical knowledge" fail to apply to some counterfactuals?
(Updateless analysis would say "observational knowledge is not knowledge" or that it's knowledge only in the sense that you should bet a certain way. This doesn't analyze the intuition of knowing the result after looking at a calculator display. There is a very salient sense in which the result becomes known, and the purpose of this thought experiment is to explore some of counterintuitive properties of such knowledge.)