Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Meta Decision Theory and Newcomb's Problem - Less Wrong

5 Post author: wdmacaskill 05 March 2013 01:29AM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 05 March 2013 04:18:39PM 6 points [-]

UDT is totally supposed to smoke on the smoking lesion problem. That's kinda the whole point of TDT, UDT, and all the other theories in the family.

It seems to me that your high-stakes predictor case is adequately explained by residual uncertainty about the scenario setup and whether Omega actually predicts you perfectly, which will yield two-boxing by TDT in this case as well. Literal, absolute epistemic certainty will lead to one-boxing, but this is a degree of certainty so great that we find it difficult to stipulate even in our imaginations.

I ought to steal that "stick of chewing gum vs. a million children" to use on anyone who claims that the word of the Bible is certain, but I don't think I've ever met anyone in person who said that.