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Topic: Newcomb's Dilemma (Read 9509 times) |
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Brian
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I believe Smullyan mentions the omniscient/choice paradox in one of his books, and he points out (like Jock) that it seems logically contradictory.
Suppose the computer is going to predict whether you'll have eggs or toast for breakfast, and included in the manifold inputs to your supposedly deterministic brain is the computer's prediction. That is, you're told the prediction before you get into the kitchen.
It's hard to disprove the theoretical possibility that I don't have free will -- maybe my brain is really just a complicated billiard table and my feeling of free will is an illusion. But I know that I can be stubborn, and deliberately choose the opposite of whatever prediction is given to me, and thereby make it impossible for the computer to make an accurate prediction.
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towr
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Re: Newcomb's Dilemma
« Reply #76 on: Oct 11th, 2005, 10:23am » |
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If you violate the premise that the prediction is accurate, sure, then it's illogical. Violating a premise always is.
But it's conceivable that you might act as predicted, so under the premise that the prediction is accurate, logically, you must do what's predicted.
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Sjoerd Job Postmus
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Re: Newcomb's Dilemma
« Reply #77 on: Oct 11th, 2005, 11:06am » |
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Funnily enough, this AI computer can only tell the actions of the person who build it...
On the other side, asking a question about: "What will I do", will only work if the computer realizes that your action doesn't depend on the answer, or that you will do exactly what the computer says. If it knows you will avoid doing what it says you're going to do, it must go into an infinite loop.
So, if the computer has only been asked: "What box will <name> choose?", the computer will just give the correct answer. If it is told you will also get the answer, it'll loop.
Funnily enough, the computer has been asked: "What box will <name> choose?", so what you'll do, is choose to discard box A 
j/k. The richer you are, the more likely you are to take a risk.
Poor person takes box A.
Extremely rich person takes box B.
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sreenivasan
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the best possible solution for this riddle would be to take the box which u didnt open...this makes perfect sense because if u had opened A then u get 2 take B and if u had opened B then u get to take A.so i guess u should either negotiate with the person offering u this offer or switch the labels on the boxes and then open it.
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Grimbal
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Re: Newcomb's Dilemma
« Reply #79 on: Oct 12th, 2005, 9:14am » |
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The computer would have predicted that, wouldn't it?
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sreeni_rox
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Re: Newcomb's Dilemma
« Reply #80 on: Oct 12th, 2005, 3:10pm » |
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here the catch is the computer will predict the box which u r going to open and not the box which you r going to take...so if u say that"u will take the box which u didnt open" then...the problem still survives....let us say that u r the person who is goin 2 open the box.u claim that u will be taking the box which which is not opened by you irrespective of its contents...u enter the room and open the box named A.in this case the computer would have already predicted that u will open the box named A and box B will contain a billion dollars...but because u have already claimed that u will be taking the box u didnt open...u will take the box B which contains a billion dollars...i guess this explains my solution...i am wrong please let me know the correct solution...Cheers!!!
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mexican
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Re: Newcomb's Dilemma
« Reply #81 on: Dec 5th, 2005, 2:31pm » |
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Let us assume the computer is fallible (amazing accuracy), though we are uncertain of the amount of such. Accepting that presupposition, I think I can increase the inherent unreliability of the computer's prediction by choosing to base my judgement on a random occurence, such as the flip of a coin, and choosing B. Flipping a coin N times and choosing B should increase the likelyhood that the computer chose A.
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