Great post! It clears up many of my misunderstandings and misconceptions I had after reading your last one.

I certainly have to agree, my concept of a implicit model is very problematic. And control systems are creepy!

Isn’t a model of the outside world built in – implicit – in the robot’s design? Surely it has no explicit knowledge of the outside world, yet it was built in a certain way so that it can counteract outside forces. Randomly throwing together a robot most certainly will not get you such a behaviour – but design (or evolution!) will give you a robot with a implicit model of the outside world (maybe at some point one who can formulate explicit models). I wouldn’t be so fast and just throw away the notion of a model.

I find the perspective very intriguing, but I think of it more as nature’s (or human designer’s) way of building quick and dirty, simple and efficient machines. To achieve that goal implicit models are very important. There is no magic – you need a model, albeit one that is implicit.

Why ask for political parties? Political views are complicated, if all you can do is pick a party this complexity is lost. All those not from the US (like myself) might additionally have a hard time picking a party.

Those are not easy problems to solve and it is certainly questionable if thinking of some more specific questions about political views and throwing them all together will get you meaningful reliable and valid results. As long as you cannot do better than that asking just for preferred political parties is certainly good enough.

And it still depends on the nature of the the omniscient being in question. Having enough information does not make you make wise choices.

If you happen to know how the God thinks you can answer for sure whether or not you can outwit him. As you said yourself, "I think we should strive to know others models of our decision making and know when these models break down. That could be useful." This applies to omniscient yet fallible Gods as well. Heck, you can know the entire state of the universe at all times and still not understand the Calvinist problem. In that case, dumbfounding the idiot god is trivial.

And isn’t having that ability exactly the same as having a crystal ball that actually can look into the future? Isn’t then being able to predict the future with 100 percent certainty the same as having the ability to actually look into the future? Then, I think, it might be possible to say that the God or alien cannot be outwitted.

Not so. While you can never surprise a God that can perfectly predict the future, you may certainly outwit him. If the God limits his 'rules' to that which could be written on say, a few stone tablets then it is certainly possible to manouver around them. Alternatively, the God in question may be omniscient yet stupid. I've seen plenty of humans who will not change their strategy when confonted with absolute and trasparent proof that their strategy is flawed and will not work. I see no reason why a God could not do the same thing.

Yes, choose!

I don't find Cleonid's comparison with run-of-the-mill determinism inappropriate. The position of particles during the infancy of the universe completely determined whether or not I will get out of bed tomorrow morning. In that sense, I am a get-out-of-bed Calvinist: my fate was already decided at the moment of Creation, and I am either one of the elect whose genes/environment/etc predispose him to rising, or one of the reprobate whose genes/environment/etc doom him to stay in bed all day.

And yet I wake up tomorrow morning, and I find myself presented with what seems like a choice to get out of bed or not.

I am happy to say I "choose" to get out of bed, and I am happy to say I would "choose" to be a virtuous Calvinist. Even though I'm imbuing the word "choose" with less mystical force than a believer in free will might.

(here I am assuming a relationship between spiritual causes and the soul that's similar to the relationship between physical causes and the brain you explained in Thou Art Physics. As far as I know, Calvinists believe that God's choice is mediated through a change in the effect of original sin on the soul of the person He has chosen, which seems to fit the bill.)

How can I make this clearer...okay. Let's say there have been a trillion Calvinists throughout history. They've all been rationalists and they've all engaged in this same argument. Some of them have been pro-sin for the same reasons you are, others have been pro-virtue for the same reasons I am. Some on each side have changed their minds after having listened to the arguments. And of all of these trillion Calvinists, every single one who after all the arguments decides to live a life of virtue - has gone to Heaven. And every single one who, after all the arguments, decides to live a life of sin - has gone to Hell.

To say that you have no reason to change your mind here seems to be suggesting that there's a pretty good chance you will be the exception to a rule that has held 100% of the time in previous cases: the sinful Calvinist who goes to Heaven, or the virtuous Calvinist who goes to Hell. If this never worked for a trillion people in your exact position, why do you think it will work for you now?