Newcomb's problem splits people 50/50 in two camps, but the interesting thing is that both sides think the answer is obvious, and both sides think the other side is being silly. When I created a video criticizing Veritasium's video This Paradox Splits Smart People 50/50 I received a ton of feedback particularly from the two-box camp and I simply could not convince anyone of why they were wrong.
That lead me to believe there must be some cognitive trap at play: someone must be not seeing something clearly. After a ton of debates, reading the literature, considering similar problems, discussing with LLMs, and just thinking deeply, I believe the core of the problem is recursive thinking.
Some people are fluent in recursivity, and for them certain kind of problems are obvious, but not everyone thinks the same way.
My essay touches Newcomb's problem, but the real focus is on why some people are predisposed to a certain choice, and I contend free will, determinism, and the sense of self, all affect Newcomb's problem and recursivity fluency predisposes certain views, in particular a proper understanding of embedded agency must predispose a particular (correct) choice.
I do not see how any of this is not obvious, but that's part of the problem, because that's likely due to my prior commitments not being the same as the ones of people who pick two-boxes. But I would like to hear if any two-boxer can point out any flaw in my reasoning.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Ok, so I'm trying to follow. The clock we're analyzing has all of the access it needs in order to do y', which is what it's going to do, and which we've observed is suboptimal. But then, I guess, we're like, hypothesizing that we could conjure up some faster-than-light travel for something, waves hands, to this clock. And that, somehow, waves hands, I guess if we, like, change the design of the clock or something, which we can't do, somehow, waves hands, could end up in it doing action y instead of y'.
Like, what is the problem here? What is the space of possible actions? What am I trying to solve for?
More options
Context Copy link