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NancyLebovitz comments on Why do theists, undergrads, and Less Wrongers favor one-boxing on Newcomb? - Less Wrong Discussion

15 Post author: CarlShulman 19 June 2013 01:55AM

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Comment author: NancyLebovitz 19 June 2013 10:22:02AM *  11 points [-]

I'd one box because there's no way I'd risk losing a million dollars to get an extra thousand based on arguments about a problem which bores me so much I have trouble paying attention to it.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 19 June 2013 04:20:14PM 5 points [-]

What if Box B contains $1,500 instead of $1,000,000 but Omega has still been right 999 times out of 1000?

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 19 June 2013 04:39:38PM *  1 point [-]

You did get me to pay a little more attention to the problem. I'd two box in that case. I'm not sure where my crossover is.

Edited to add: I think I got it backwards. I'd still one box. Committing to one-box seems advantageous if Omega is reasonably reliable.

I suppose that then you could numbers on whether the person will reliably keep commitments.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 20 June 2013 08:07:19AM 0 points [-]

Best analysis of Newcomb's Paradox I've seen so far - boring. There's nothing to see here. It all comes down to how you model the situation and what your priors are.

I find it hard to imagine a situation where I have more belief in the Predictor's ability than the ability of the Predictor to give false evidence that I can't figure out the trick of.

I'd two box because I see no reason to risk of losing anything. In the face of perceived trickery, I'm all the more betting on causality.