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.
It sounds like you find the second argument so unconvincing that you don't see why people consider it a paradox.
It doesn't make sense given the rules. The rules say that there will only be a million in box B iff you only take box B. I'm not the kind of person who calls the police when faced with the trolley problem thought experiment. Besides that, the laws of physics obviously do not permit you to deliberately take both boxes if a nearly perfect predictor knows that you'll only take box B. Therefore considering that counterfactual makes no sense (much less than a nearly perfect predictor).
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.