Surprisingly, Ben Goertzel's (2010) Counterfactual Reprogramming Decision Theory (CRDT) has not been discussed even once on Less Wrong, so I present this discussion post as an opportunity to do so.

Here is Goertzel's abstract:

A novel variant of decision theory is presented. The basic idea is that one should ask, at each point in time: What would I do if the reprogrammable parts of my brain were reprogrammed by a superintelligent Master Programmer with the goal of supplying me with a program that would maximize my utility averaged over possible worlds? Problems such as the Prisoner's Dilemma, the value of voting, Newcomb's Problem and the Psychopath Button are reviewed from this perspective and shown to be addressed in a satisfactory way.

His first footnote acknowledges some debt to Less Wrong and to Wei Dai in particular:

Some interesting, albeit often confusing, discussion on CDT and hypothetical replacement decision theories may be found online at the Less Wrong blog... The decision algorithm presented by Dai on that blog page bears some resemblance to CRDT, but due to the rough and very informal exposition there, I'm not sure what is the precise relationship.

He also discusses Vladimir Nesov's counterfactual mugging scenario, and attempts to work toward a formalization of CRDT by making use of AIXI and some other stuff.

Thoughts?