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cousin_it comments on Open Thread, Apr. 20 - Apr. 26, 2015 - Less Wrong
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I've come up with an interesting thought experiment I call oracle mugging.
An oracle comes up to you and tells you that either you will give them a thousand dollars or you will die in the next week. They refuse to tell you which. They have done this many times, and everyone has either given them money or died. The oracle isn't threatening you. They just go around and find people who will either give them money or die in the near future, and tell them that.
Should you pay the oracle? Why or why not?
I wouldn't pay. Let's convert it to a mundane psychological experiment, by replacing precognition with precommitment (which is the right approach according to UDT):
1) Ten participants sign up for the experiment.
2) One participant is randomly chosen to be the "loser". We know who the "loser" is, but don't tell the participants.
3) Also, each participant tells us in private whether they are a "payer" or "non-payer".
4) Each "payer" who is not a "loser" pays $10 (this corresponds to paying the oracle and staying alive). The "loser" pays $100 (this corresponds to dying). Everyone else pays nothing.
It seems obvious that you should choose to be a "non-payer", right?
In terms of the original problem, if you're the kind of person who would pay the oracle if you were approached, you're causing the oracle to approach you, so you're paying for nothing.
I don't think that it's specified in the OP that the oracle considers it likely that you will pay or indeed approaches people based on their likelihood to pay.
but it is! it really depends on how many levels of "If I know that the oracle knows that I know" you want to go into. Because if the oracle is able to factor in your decision to pay or not in whether they tell you that you should pay then thats a super-duper-oracle.
Also paying and dying is permissable and not great either.