cousin_it comments on Formalizing Newcomb's - Less Wrong

18 Post author: cousin_it 05 April 2009 03:39PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (111)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: cousin_it 07 April 2009 01:51:44PM *  0 points [-]

Playing around with the problem, I think, has increased my understanding of the real World.

In what ways?

Most insights that arise from Newcomb's problem seem to me to be either phony or derivable from simpler problems that don't feature omniscient entities. Admittedly you can meditate on the logical loop forever in the illusion that it increases your understanding. Maybe the unexpected hanging paradox will help snap you out? That paradox also allows perpetual meditation until we sit down and demystify the word "surprise" into mathematical logic, exposing the problem statement as self-referential and self-contradictory. In Newcomb's problem we might just need to similarly demystify the word "predict", as I've been trying to.