Timeline for Why is the Newcomb problem confusing?
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| Oct 25 at 10:45 | answer | added | Kristian Berry | timeline score: 1 | |
| Oct 5 at 13:14 | comment | added | mudskipper | This implicit assumption that the predictor would be just as good at predicting the one-box and the two-box choices turns out to actually be a crucial hidden assumption in the CDT argument for two-boxing. So far I have not seen any philosophers who seemed to be aware of this. But it turns out that Maya Bar-Hillel in her analysis (together with Avi Margalit) did identify this as the pain point in the argument. | |
| Sep 29 at 18:34 | comment | added | mudskipper | One thing that I've never seen discussed -- because almost nobody discusses this from the pov of (predictive/descriptive) game-theory but always from the pov of (normative) decision theory -- is the implicit assumption that the predictor is just as good at predicting whether someone (or anyone in particular) will one-box as he is in predicting that they will two-box. This is an assumption we don't necessarily have to make (but which is hidden in the problem story). | |
| Sep 29 at 17:13 | comment | added | Idiosyncratic Soul | @mudskipper I agree. I doubt the same choice would be offered if Box A contained a dime rather than $1000. The problem reveals that risk and value/worth have strong psychological/sociological components. Replace the predictor with a blind coin flip and I believe you would see results very similar to that with a predictor: | |
| Sep 29 at 16:50 | history | edited | mudskipper | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Sep 29 at 16:44 | history | edited | mudskipper | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Sep 29 at 16:39 | history | edited | mudskipper | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Sep 29 at 14:46 | comment | added | mudskipper | @KristianBerry - The amount of money offered is also psychologically definitely a distracting factor. It's much better to transform the problem using smaller numbers and/or only look at ordinal preference orderings imo. (Psychologically it may be that the Allais paradox comes into play. Arif Ahmed discusses this in "Evidence, Decision and Causality", but I forgot details.) | |
| Sep 29 at 14:38 | comment | added | mudskipper | @KristianBerry - If I understand you correctly, you bring up an infernally touchy point. Adam Elga brings this (your 2nd question) up in princeton.edu/~adame/papers/newcomb-university/… -- which is a terribly amusing take-down of both the evidentialist and causalist reasonings (but especially the causalist ones). And as far as I know he is the only one who really touched on this (but I've only skimmed a small portion of the literature of course). When you read Elga you will understand why I underlined 'touched' :) | |
| Sep 29 at 14:33 | comment | added | Kristian Berry | Does the issue of marginally decreasing utility play into this problem at all? Have any of the answers brought it up or is it not relevant? Also, does the distinction between debits and credits have any bearing on the rationality of wanting either box in the first place? | |
| Sep 29 at 13:04 | answer | added | Pepe | timeline score: 3 | |
| Jun 25 at 12:11 | comment | added | Miss Understands | " See the chat for details" What chat? | |
| Jun 23 at 19:55 | answer | added | Kevin | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jun 22 at 0:04 | answer | added | Paul Torek | timeline score: 3 | |
| Jun 21 at 14:34 | history | edited | mudskipper | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| S Jun 21 at 9:18 | history | mod moved comments to chat | |||
| S Jun 21 at 9:18 | comment | added | Geoffrey Thomas♦ | Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on Philosophy Meta, or in Philosophy Chat. Comments continuing discussion may be removed. | |
| Jun 20 at 23:11 | answer | added | Miss Understands | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jun 20 at 12:58 | answer | added | haxor789 | timeline score: 11 | |
| Jun 20 at 11:07 | answer | added | user6527 | timeline score: 4 | |
| Jun 20 at 9:51 | answer | added | AnoE | timeline score: 6 | |
| Jun 20 at 4:50 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Jun 20 at 4:31 | answer | added | Bumble | timeline score: 9 | |
| Jun 19 at 23:32 | history | edited | mudskipper | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 19 at 22:47 | history | edited | mudskipper | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 19 at 22:37 | history | edited | mudskipper | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 19 at 21:27 | history | edited | mudskipper | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 19 at 21:22 | history | edited | mudskipper | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 19 at 21:03 | history | edited | mudskipper |
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| Jun 19 at 19:39 | history | asked | mudskipper | CC BY-SA 4.0 |