The lesson of Newcomb's paradox.
In Newcomb's paradox you can choose to receive either the contents of a particular closed box, or the contents of both that closed box and another one. Before you choose though, an antagonist uses a prediction algorithm to accurately deduce your choice, and uses that deduction to fill the two boxes....
| Published in: | Synthese Vol. 190; no. 9; pp. 1637 - 1647 |
|---|---|
| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Article |
| Published: |
Springer Nature
Jun2013
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=87336241&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 87336241 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00397857 4LI jtl: Synthese issn: 00397857 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jun2013 vid: 190 iid: 9 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 87336241 10.1007/s11229-011-9899-3 ppf: 1637 ppct: 10 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 143KB tig: atl: The lesson of Newcomb's paradox. aug: au: Wolpert, David Benford, Gregory affil: NASA Ames Research Center, MS 269-1 Moffett Field 94035-1000 USA Physics and Astronomy Department, University of California, Irvine 92692 USA su: Paradox Algorithm research Game theory Random variables Time reversal Determinism (Philosophy) sug: subj: Paradox Algorithm research Game theory Random variables Time reversal Determinism (Philosophy) keyword: Bayes net Causality Determinism Newcomb's paradox ab: In Newcomb's paradox you can choose to receive either the contents of a particular closed box, or the contents of both that closed box and another one. Before you choose though, an antagonist uses a prediction algorithm to accurately deduce your choice, and uses that deduction to fill the two boxes. The way they do this guarantees that you made the wrong choice. Newcomb's paradox is that game theory's expected utility and dominance principles appear to provide conflicting recommendations for what you should choose. Here we show that the conflicting recommendations assume different probabilistic structures relating your choice and the algorithm's prediction. This resolves the paradox: the reason there appears to be two conflicting recommendations is that the probabilistic structure relating the problem's random variables is open to two, conflicting interpretations. We then show that the accuracy of the prediction algorithm in Newcomb's paradox, the focus of much previous work, is irrelevant. We end by showing that Newcomb's paradox is time-reversal invariant; both the paradox and its resolution are unchanged if the algorithm makes its 'prediction' after you make your choice rather than before. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Synthese is a copyright of Springer, 2013. All Rights Reserved. item: Synthese holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2013 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
|---|