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shminux comments on Is Omega Impossible? Can we even ask? - Less Wrong Discussion

-8 Post author: mwengler 24 October 2012 02:47PM

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Comment author: shminux 24 October 2012 04:16:08PM 7 points [-]

Personally, I can think of LOTS of reasons to doubt that Newcomb's problem is even theoretically possible to set.

If you allow arbitrarily high but not 100%-accurate predictions (as EY is fond of repeating, 100% is not a probability), the original Newcomb's problem is defined as the limit when prediction accuracy goes to 100%. As noted in other comments, the "winning" answer to the problem is not sensitive to the prediction level just above 50% accuracy (1/(2-1000/1000000), to be precise), so the limiting case must have the same answer.

Comment author: mwengler 25 October 2012 02:36:52PM 2 points [-]

Damn good point, thanks. That certainly answers my concern about Newcomb's problem.