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polymathwannabe comments on Open Thread, Apr. 20 - Apr. 26, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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The OP's description doesn't seem to imply that refusal to pay causes the death. The oracle is simply saying that there are two possible futures: in one, the victim pays the money and survives; in the other one, the victim doesn't pay and doesn't survive.
I guess the difference in our interpretations is what we take the "and" to mean; you seem to see it as denoting causation, whereas I'd say it's merely denoting temporal consecution.
I think you mean "that there are only two possible futures."
Which leaves me puzzled as to your point.
If I am confident that there are only two possible futures, one where I pay and live, and one where I don't pay and die, how is that different from being confident that paying causes me to live, or from being confident that not-paying causes me to die? Those just seem like three different ways of describing the same situation to me.
I'm rephrasing Lumifers example to a person who doesn't work within the traditionally accepted medical field.
It makes no statement about how the causation works. That means a person who doesn't know how the causation works can not sure that the oracle doesn't cause it in some way.