In the cloning scenario, Tim-in-China would have to be a modified version of Tim-in-US.
There's no reason for this. A true CDT doesn't need to see the results of its actions, it just needs to predict them. Since its an ideal Bayesian, it should be quite good at this. Tim in China might acquire new information the Tim in US didn't know, causing it to revise its probability distribution, but it would not change its utility function. Nor would it cease to be a CDT, which means in practice it would not self-modify.
Also, strictly speaking, prior to the point where Tim in China is created the problems are not fully action-determined, since the outcome is affected by things other than random chance the the choices made by Tim in US.
Heat but no light this time around. I won't reply more unless it gets better.
In the cloning scenario, Tim-in-China would have to be a modified version of Tim-in-US.
There's no reason for this.
The world in which Tim-in-US lives determines what options are available when creating Tim-in-China, not any property of CDT, so if I'm creating the scenario I can fill in the details so there is reason for Tim-in-China to be lame in any way I choose. It could be very simple -- Tim-in-US has a button to push that will both destroy Tim-in-US and set Tim-in-Chin...
I don't know if this is a little too afar field for even a Discussion post, but people seemed to enjoy my previous articles (Girl Scouts financial filings, video game console insurance, philosophy of identity/abortion, & prediction market fees), so...
I recently wrote up an idea that has been bouncing around my head ever since I watched Death Note years ago - can we quantify Light Yagami's mistakes? Which mistake was the greatest? How could one do better? We can shed some light on the matter by examining DN with... basic information theory.
Presented for LessWrong's consideration: Death Note & Anonymity.