Newcomb's Paradox

[AlveK]

(all bold in this post by me)

@Pierre-Normand

What my diagram shows is that the predictor’s anticipation and the agent’s choice both flow from a common source: (…)

No shit. This is called correlation due to common cause. It is one of the forms of non-causative correlation.

If there is an element that I cannot cause, then it is irrelevant to my decision-making; for my decision-making seeks to cause something.

@Pierre-Normand

The answer is: it doesn’t. There is no determination running from the choice to the anticipation: not ontic, not epistemic, not any third kind. You are looking for an arrow that my position says does not exist, and treating its absence as a deficiency rather than as the point.

So, the absolute lack of any consistency in your stance shows that you have nothing but a deepity. Your stance is a bar of soap: the second I grasp it, it flies out of my hand.

I can prove that you are contradicting yourself here. With the below quotes, we see that you have been maintaining that the player’s Phase 2 choice determines the contents of Box 2, in some way. Here:

@Pierre-Normand

(…) it is precisely what makes the agent’s Phase 2 deliberation causally efficacious with respect to the content of the opaque box.

@Pierre-Normand

What there is is a kind of causation — rational causation — that the CDT framework doesn’t recognize.

@Pierre-Normand

It is a practical determination (…)

@Pierre-Normand

The predictor has made the agent’s practical knowledge causally efficacious with respect to the very facts the agent is deliberating about.

@Pierre-Normand

So the determination is neither merely epistemic (“sad news”) nor “ontically retrocausal.” It is the distinctive determination that practical knowledge has with respect to what it understands.

@Pierre-Normand

You wonder what semantic space there might be between ontic and epistemic determination.

(…)

Within that framework, there genuinely is no third option, and I grant that my position must sound a bit like a blur of the two.

@Pierre-Normand

You asked: “What changes, then?” I think the question is revealing precisely because it presupposes that determination must involve one thing changing another thing.

@Pierre-Normand

Practical determination, though, is not a matter of changing but of making it the case.

@Pierre-Normand

My view is not that the agent’s choice stands in some novel binary relation to the box contents.

@Pierre-Normand

As for P-determines: I haven’t given it up.

Of course, this determination that you are so determined to not define, it relates to your flirtation with retro-causation:

@Pierre-Normand

On the view I’m defending, the diagram needs to be redrawn, not by adding a new arrow, but by collapsing two nodes.

@Pierre-Normand

But your Phase 1/Phase 2 distinction draws the cut between past and present at the moment of deliberation and assigns the predictor’s action entirely to the “fixed past” side.

@Pierre-Normand

It [CDT] holds the predictor’s action fixed because it treats it as part of “the past,” causally insulated from the agent’s present reasoning.

So, you fault CDT for holding the predictor’s action causally insulated from the player’s present reasoning? The predictor does not cause the player to make their choice in Phase 2. And the player’s choice in Phase 2 does not cause the predictor to fill Box 2 accordingly.

The former violates the entire premise of the Newcomb Game, and the latter would be retro-causation.

Lastly, there is this point of yours I missed:

@Pierre-Normand

And the 1% failure rate comes from the predictor’s imperfect sensitivity to those grounds, as your own diagram already shows.

Firstly, you have misinterpreted my diagram. For simplicity, I said the predictor had perfect sensitivity to the player’s predisposition, but that the player’s predisposition only ontically determined the player’s choice in Phase 2 with 99% likelihood.

Flipping this picture is not an alternative. Doing so would imply people’s rational profile never changes, and that people never violate their own rational profile.

The only way to disagree with my diagram on that front, then, would be to say that the predictor’s sensitivity is also imperfect, but all that does is add some extra uncertainty to its prediction. It changes nothing fundamental about the scenario.

Conclusion

You do not have a consistent view, Pierre. I hope your fellow OBs, @Michael, @noAxioms, @Sime, @Patterner, @FlannelJesus can see this. All of you, look at the quotes!

There either is a determination between the player’s choice and Box 2’s contents… or there isn’t.

If it’s merely epistemic, it is not sufficient, as Pierre has agreed. And if it is causal, then it is retro-causal, which Pierre has also agreed is not correct.

Please, let us hold each other accountable. Pierre is claiming a different thing in every post. I have been claiming the exact same things the whole time, and my claims are clear and rigorous. You may disagree with my claims. However, I expect none of you are confused about what I believe.

Conversely, I think even Pierre is confused about what Pierre believes.