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ike comments on Newcomb versus dust specks - Less Wrong Discussion
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This implicitly assumes EDT.
But that's not what CDT counterfactuals do. You cut off previous nodes. As the choice to smoke doesn't causally affect the gene, smoking doesn't counterfactually contradict the prediction. If you would actually smoke, then yes, but counterfactuals don't imply there's any chance of it happening in reality.
No it doesn't. It assumes a "perfect predictor" is what it is. I don't give a damn about evidence - we're specifying properties of a universe here.
CDT assumes causality makes sense in the universe. Your hypotheticals don't take place in a universe with the kind of causality causal decision theory depends upon.
In the case of a perfect predictor, yes, smoking specifies which gene you have. You don't get to say "Everybody who smokes has this gene" as a property of the universe, and then pretend to be an exception to a property of the universe because you have a bizarre and magical agency that gets to bypass properties of the universe. You're a part of the universe; if the universe has a law (which it does, in our hypotheticals), the law applies to you, too.
We have a perfect predictor. We do something the perfect predictor predicted we wouldn't. There is a contradiction there, in case you didn't notice; either it's not, in fact, the perfect predictor we specified, or we didn't do the thing. One or the other. And our hypothetical universe is constructed such that the perfect predictor is a perfect predictor; therefore, we don't get to violate its predictions.
You said "you shouldn't smoke", which is a decision-theoretical claim, not a specification. It's consistent with EDT, but not CDT.
In other words, you're denying the exact thing that CDT asserts.
Which is what a counterfactual is.
Whatever your theory is, it is denying core claims that CDT makes, so you're denying CDT (and implicitly assuming EDT as the method for making decisions, your arguments literally map directly onto EDT arguments).
No it isn't, it's a statement about the universe: If you smoke, you'll get lesions. It's written into the specification of the universe; what decision theory you use doesn't change the characteristics of the universe.
No. You don't get to specify a universe without the kind of causality that the kind of CDT we use in our universe depends on, and then claim that this says something significant about decision theory. Causality in our hypothetical works differently.
No it isn't.
No it isn't. In terms of CDT, we can say that smoking causes the gene; this isn't wrong, because, according to the universe, anybody who smokes has the gene; if they didn't, they do now, because the correlation is guaranteed by the laws of the universe. No matter how much work you prepared to ensure you didn't have the gene in advance of smoking, the law of the universe says you have it now. No matter how many tests you ran, they were all wrong.
It may seem unintuitive and bizarre, because our own universe doesn't behave this way - but when you find yourself in an alien universe, stomping your foot and insisting that the laws of physics should behave the way you're used to them behaving is a fast way to die. Once you introduce a perfect predictor, the universe must bend to ensure the predictions work out.
What kind of causality is this, given that you assert that the correct thing to do in smoking lesions is refrain from smoking, and smoking lesions is one of the standard things where CDT says to smoke?
"A causes B, therefore B causes A" is a fallacy no matter what arguments you put forward.
CDT asserts the opposite, and so if you claim this then you disagree with CDT.
You don't understand what counterfactuals are.
Recursive causality.
Perfect mutual correlation means both that A->B and that B->A.
No it doesn't.
A counterfactual is a state of existence which is not true of the universe. It is not a contradiction.