roryokane comments on Newcomb's Problem and Regret of Rationality - Less Wrong

64 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 31 January 2008 07:36PM

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Comment author: roryokane 22 August 2010 11:00:30PM *  0 points [-]

What this is really saying is “if something impossible (according to your current theory of the world) actually happens, then rather than insisting it’s impossible and ignoring it, you should revise your theory to say that’s possible”. In this case, the impossible thing is reverse causality; since we are told of evidence that reverse causality has happened in the form of 100 successful previous experiments, we must revise our theory to accept that reverse causality actually can happen. This would lead us to the conclusion that we should take one box. Alternatively, we could decide that our supposed evidence is untrustworthy and that we are being lied to when we are told that Omega made 100 successful predictions – we might think that this problem describes a nonsensical, impossible situation, similarly to if we were told that there was a barber who shaves everyone who does not shave themself.