I am currently learning about the basics of decision theory, most of which is common knowledge on LW. I have a question, related to why EDT is said not to work.
Consider the following Newcomblike problem: A study shows that most people who two-box in Newcomblike problems as the following have a certain gene (and one-boxers don't have the gene). Now, Omega could put you into something like Newcomb's original problem, but instead of having run a simulation of you, Omega has only looked at your DNA: If you don't have the "two-boxing gene", Omega puts $1M into box B, otherwise box B is empty. And there is $1K in box A, as usual. Would you one-box (take only box B) or two-box (take box A and B)? Here's a causal diagram for the problem:
Since Omega does not do much other than translating your genes into money under a box, it does not seem to hurt to leave it out:
I presume that most LWers would one-box. (And as I understand it, not only CDT but also TDT would two-box, am I wrong?)
Now, how does this problem differ from the smoking lesion or Yudkowsky's (2010, p.67) chewing gum problem? Chewing Gum (or smoking) seems to be like taking box A to get at least/additional $1K, the two-boxing gene is like the CGTA gene, the illness itself (the abscess or lung cancer) is like not having $1M in box B. Here's another causal diagram, this time for the chewing gum problem:
As far as I can tell, the difference between the two problems is some additional, unstated intuition in the classic medical Newcomb problems. Maybe, the additional assumption is that the actual evidence lies in the "tickle", or that knowing and thinking about the study results causes some complications. In EDT terms: The intuition is that neither smoking nor chewing gum gives the agent additional information.
Thank you for this elaborate response!!
Why would Omega look at other human genes and not the two-boxing (correlated) gene(s) in any world?
Maybe I overlook something or did not describe the problem very well, but in the second multiverse UDT agents two-box, therefore UDT agents (probably) have the two-boxing gene and don't get the $1M. In the first multiverse, UDT agents one-box, therefore UDT agents (probably) don't have the one-boxing gene and get the $1M. So, the first multiverse seems to be better than the second.
Yes, this is more or less the scenario, I was trying to describe. Specifically, I wrote:
So, it's part of the GNP that Omega has looked at the "two-boxing gene" or (more realistically perhaps) the "most common gene correlated with two-boxing".
I was trying to create a version of the problem that corresponds more closely to MNP, where the fact that a single gene correlates with both chewing gum and abscess is a coincidence, not the result of some process looking for genes correlated with chewing gum, and giving people with those genes abscesses.
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