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TheOtherDave comments on You're in Newcomb's Box - LessWrong
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Not quite. Thinking it over, what I'm saying is that one-boxing in transparent Newcomb requires a level of committment that's different in kind to the level of commitment required by normal Newcomb. Here's why:
Our primary goal is to get a box filled with $1.000.000
In normal Newcomb, we can succeed in this by committing to taking the opaque box. Therefore we just have to trust Omega's predictive capabilities were good enough to predict us one-boxing, so that the opaque box IS the box with $1.000.000
In transparent Newcomb, we can succeed in getting a box filled with $1.000.000 only by committing to take an empty box instead if an empty box appears.Unless our senses are deluding us (e.g. simulation), this is a logical impossibility. So we must commit to a logical impossibility, which being a logical impossibility should never happen.
So normal Newcomb just requires a bit of trust in Omega's abilities, while transparent Newcomb requires committing to a logical impossibility (that the empty box is the filled box). Or perhaps altering your utility function so that you no longer want money-filled boxes.
But isn't it equally a "logical impossibility" in normal Newcomb that taking both boxes will give me less money than taking just one box?
I agree that with transparent boxes the "logical impossibility" feels more salient, especially if I don't think about the normal variant too carefully. So, sure, there's a difference. But I don't think the difference is what you are claiming here.