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private_messaging comments on The Ultimate Newcomb's Problem - Less Wrong
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I don't know what "trying to factor" even would be for a number so small. It just looks like a prime. I may have seen it on a prime number list, or as a prime factor of something, or who knows where. There's easy to construct rules for determining divisibility by it's potential factors.
One could also use Miller-Rabin primarity test, which I in fact happen to have implemented before. Much of the public key cryptography depends on how testing a prime is easier than factoring a number. I'm pretty sure there is no general algorithm for determining whenever an algorithm is a good primarity test.
(I presume the point is that you aren't trying to determine whenever it is prime or not, which breaks all sorts of assumptions inherent in utility maximization)
If that bothers you, how about instead of displaying the number, instead what you see is the number encrypted using a key known only to the lottery-runners and Omega?
It could be more interesting, though, if it was 7. That may better demonstrate the inconsistencies in mathematics that result from an incorrect hypothetical about your choice.
In a transparent Newcomb's, I can simply take one empty box and leave the other, if one box is empty, and take both boxes if they are both full.