brennan
Argumentative Brit
Er, I suggest you read the OP. Omega has a 100/100 correct prediction rate.
Newcomb's Problem
- Thread starter Erik Mesoy
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Erik Mesoy
Core Tester / Intern
Omega screwed the two-boxers ahead of time; their "choice" was $1000 or nothing?
Chandrasekhar
Determined
And furthermore, by calculations earlier in the thread, if you think that Omega has even a slightly better than 50% chance to predict your choice, then you can't assume that you have a the samel chance of getting a $1,001,000 over $1000 as you do of getting $1,000,000 over $0.
Edit: Crosspost with Erik. You fail to account for the possiblity that it's their own damn fault for being two-boxers in the first place.
Edit: Crosspost with Erik. You fail to account for the possiblity that it's their own damn fault for being two-boxers in the first place.
brennan
Argumentative Brit
Damned by their own stubbornness, all they have to do is make the simple decision to be a One-boxer.Omega screwed the two-boxers ahead of time; their "choice" was $1000 or nothing?
btw Awesome thread, better than the boy/girl thing.
That's impossible to do in general (some information is missing).
For example, try to compute what is the chance that an alien who has been right one time out of time will be right next time and explain why your computation works.
This also cannot be computed (the probability that he is guessing)
(Bolding mine)
No, that is the probability that he would be right a hundred times in a row ASSUMING that he is guessing.
So much for winning the thread.
Mise
isle of lucy
Yes, exactly....
GIVEN that he's been right 100 times in a row, what's the probability that his prediction rate is 50%?
3 ways of saying the same thing....
Nope. You seem to be confused about conditional probability.
Read it slowly:
What I wrote : "What is the probability that he is right a 100 times given that his sucess rate is 50%"
What you wrote : "What is the probability that his success rate is 50% given that he has been right 100 times in a row".
All of you are mixing up conditional probability P(A|B) with P(B|A).
Just to give an easier example why information is missing (I asked this question in my previous post).
Suppose he had been right 1 time in a row (he tried once, and was right), how would you calculate the chance that he is guessing?
(The answer is that you can't, with just this information. Same goes for 100).
Ayatollah So
the spoof'll set you free
There's no such contradiction. In Mise's formulation below, either (a) or (c) will get you the first part of your sentence being true, while the "thus..." part is false. My personal favorite is the combination of (a) AND (c)
(but in (c), replace "result" with "logical consequence given the laws of nature").
Damned by their own stubbornness, all they have to do is make the simple decision to be a One-boxer.
btw Awesome thread, better than the boy/girl thing.
Yes anyone who knows anything about probability knows the answer. But it seems there are some people who want to make the choice less than obvious, by messing around with things that are meaningless. I agree though good thread. If people have actually come to a conclusion then maths has won! God bless mathematics!
Now why is .999...=1? And why is the probability that I will get laid in the next four minutes approaching the infinitessimal but not 0? Hell if my room mates decide to give it a go and I turn bisexual we're game on.
Gogf
Indescribable
This has nothing to do with probability, as has been made clear repeatedly earlier.
Bollocks quite frankly.
If it has nothing to do with logic and probability then it is a meaningless thread.
OK tell me it has to do with fairy tales and moonbeams and arm waving philosophical crap? Rather than a decision based on real concerns, given real events, given real meaning. Perhaps we should of said does God exist? And then we can proceed?
My rather voluminous arse it doesn't boil down to maths.
Syterion
Voodoo Economist
False analogy, StarWorms. It's more like betting that the water will come on versus the water will come on or it wont. See what I mean?
Basically this problem comes down to either high level physics which I am not capable of answering, determinism of human thought, or whether or not you believe in god (or at least omniscience). I don't believe in god, and I'd take the belief that I have free will over the money any day. I think that would lead to more happiness.
So I take both.
Syterion
Voodoo Economist
After reading some posts, here are some thoughts.
If Omega has some sort of system which is very accurate, it makes sense to be a one-boxer. After all, otherwise he's not putting a million in that box and you get 1000. But I think people can see how rationally it is obvious, assuming no time travel and no determinism of human thought, to take both boxes, since Omega has already changed this. You cannot change the rationality with which you think, and therefore are doomed to have box B have nothing for eternity. Or you can trick yourself to believe in that which isn't as rational. It's your integrity for sale.
So - Assuming Omega doesn't cheat and that we have free will, Omega's game is there merely to screw over the rational. And since we all want to be rational, that's why there is so much argument.
If Omega has some sort of system which is very accurate, it makes sense to be a one-boxer. After all, otherwise he's not putting a million in that box and you get 1000. But I think people can see how rationally it is obvious, assuming no time travel and no determinism of human thought, to take both boxes, since Omega has already changed this. You cannot change the rationality with which you think, and therefore are doomed to have box B have nothing for eternity. Or you can trick yourself to believe in that which isn't as rational. It's your integrity for sale.
So - Assuming Omega doesn't cheat and that we have free will, Omega's game is there merely to screw over the rational. And since we all want to be rational, that's why there is so much argument.
Ayatollah So
the spoof'll set you free
So - it's rational to want to be unpredictable, even when being predictable makes me better off without making anyone else worse off? (And don't say my being a one-boxer makes Omega worse off - he obviously doesn't care about the millions, and only wants to show off his amazing prediction abilities.) It's irrational to prefer cooperative solutions (I get my million, Omega gets his bragging rights) to uncooperative strategies (I hope for 1.001 million and the opportunity to yell "in your face Omega!")? If that's rationality, I want no part of it. In that case it's irrational to remain rational.
BTW, it's possible to have free will and be predictable, and also to have free will in a deterministic universe. But that was another thread.
Syterion
Voodoo Economist
Like I said, if Omega doesn't cheat. You are assuming he cheats by putting the money in after you make your decision, which is what makes taking box B a better decision. Otherwise it is obviously better to take both, if he doesn't cheat. This is of course based on the assumption that Omega can't be tricked by half-belief - you can't falsely pretend to be a one boxer and then change. You must hope he thought wrong and you get a million and a thousand or you just get your thousand instead of nothing.
Fifty
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
psst, i have a speshul newcomb secret to tells you guys:
Spoiler secret :
Perfection
The Great Head.
YOU'RE JUST NOT LOGICAL ENOUGHTS!!!!!!!!!11111 It's obviously 1 box, dipstickkk!
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
I still haven't seen anyone successfully tackle my "random number generator" corollary
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