A reference to a paper by David Wolpert and Gregory Benford on Newcomb's paradox
Isn't the whole issue with Newcomb's paradox the fact that if you take two boxes Omega will predict it and if you take one box Omega will predict it? It doesn't matter if both boxes are transparent, you'll only take one if you did indeed precommit (or if you're the kind of person who one-boxes 'naturally') to only take one box. Since I've read the first time about it I'm puzzled by why people think there is a paradox or that the problem is difficult. Maybe I just don't get it.
In my interview of Gregory Benford I wrote:
If you say you’d take both boxes, I’ll argue that’s stupid: everyone who did that so far got just a thousand dollars, while the folks who took only box B got a million!
If you say you’d take only box B, I’ll argue that’s stupid: there has got to be more money in both boxes than in just one of them!
It sounds like you find the second argument so unconvincing that you don't see why people consider it a paradox.
For what it's worth, I'd take only one box.
The content of John Baez's This Week's Finds: Week 310:
Includes
Note: The upcoming This Week's Finds: Week 311 is an interview with Eliezer Yudkowsky by John Baez.