You yourself implicitly acknowledge as much when you said that you desire to find diamonds in the box
I never said that. In this example I don't care about diamonds. I desire to believe that my expectations of the number of diamonds will match the reported number of diamonds should, I bother checking. Could be one or could be none, whatever, as long as it matches.
You said:
If believing that there is a diamond in the box lets me find the diamond in the box, I desire to believe that there is a diamond in the box
This implies that you'd like to find a diamond in the box. That desire to find a diamond has nothing to do with physical pragmatism.
But if you say I've misread the emphasized portion of your quote, then I believe you. Not sure what it changes about my point that the physical realism debate exists in part to provide a firmer underpinning for other debates (like morality or preference).
The Litany of Tarski (formulated by Eliezer, not Tarski) reads
If the box contains a diamond,
I desire to believe that the box contains a diamond;
If the box does not contain a diamond,
I desire to believe that the box does not contain a diamond;
Let me not become attached to beliefs I may not want.
This works for a physical realist, but I have been feeling uncomfortable with it for some time now. So I have decided to reformulate it in a more instrumental way, replacing existential statements with testable predictions. I had to find a new name for it, so I call it the Litany of Instrumentarski:
If believing that there is a diamond in the box lets me find the diamond in the box,
I desire to believe that there is a diamond in the box;
If believing that there is a diamond in the box leaves me with an empty box,
I desire to believe that there is no diamond in the box;
Let me not become attached to inaccurate beliefs.
Posting it here in a hope that someone else also finds it more palatable and unassuming than straight-up realism.
EDIT: It seems to me that this modification also guides you to straight-up one-box on Newcomb, where the original one is mired in the EDT vs CDT issues.
EDIT2: Looks like the above version resulting in people confusing desiring accurate beliefs with desiring diamonds. It's about accurate accounting, not about utility of a certain form of crystallized carbon.
Maybe the first line should be modified to something like "If I later find a diamond in the box...", or something. How about the following?
If I will find a diamond in the box,
I desire to believe that I will find a diamond in the box;
If I will find no diamond in the box,
I desire to believe that I will find no diamond in the box;
Let me not become attached to inaccurate beliefs.
For some reason the editor does not let me use the <strike> tag to cross out the previous version, not sure how to work around it.