First off, if there’s a better place to ask this, I’d appreciate a nudge in that direction.

I’ve seen a lot of chatter on YouTube with Newcomb’s paradox lately (MinutePhysics Veritasium Wikipedia) and I’ve been dwelling on it more than I probably should.

To explain the problem briefly for the uninitiated: there is a super intelligent being that knows you to the core and can accurately (with 99.99+% accuracy) predict your actions/decisions. It has 2 boxes. You have the option to take either just the first box, or both boxes. In the first it always puts $1,000. In the second it will put either $1 million if it thinks you’ll take just the first box; or $0 if it thinks you’ll take both.

The apparent contradiction is explained in the videos.

So the solution to the problem I’ve come to is that you should remove your own ability to decide from your “decision” on whether to take the second box.

That is, you walk in the room, you flip a coin (or some similar random chooser) and on heads take both; on tails just take the first.

I think I’m failing to imagine all the consequences of this, but I can’t decide on what this would imply about the super intelligence’s choose of wether to put the $1 million into the box.

Any thoughts on this?

  • Oka@sopuli.xyz
    53·
    6 days ago

    The result of the coinflip is measurable, though. It could be done by a hyperintelligent being.

    • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
      1·
      6 days ago

      You didn’t read the article. The computer isn’t watching you flip the coin and then switching the boxes at the last moment.

      The boxes are fixed before you enter the room. The computer has already predicted your choice.

      Which is beside the point that the OP posited using a random process to make the choice for you. The method of randomness isn’t the issue. That’s why I said a Geiger counter could be substituted for a coin flip.

      • Oka@sopuli.xyz
        2·
        6 days ago

        I didnt read the article because i’m familiar with the theory already. I believe the universe is determinate, so every choice is predetermined. Therefore, the “predictor” can calculate your exact choice if it knows all variables of the universe. If it doesnt, it can calculate a likelihood between 99.9 repeating and 50.0 repeating, based on all the variables it does know.

        Because the universe can be measured by this entity, it can also know exactly how the coin will land, or in your example, exactly what read the Geiger counter will have.

        • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
          2·
          6 days ago

          I believe the universe is determinate

          That has been experimentally proven false and outside of all mainstream science.

          While you can have a supernatural belief in a clockwork universe, the premise is a supercomputer makes the prediction, not God.

          • Oka@sopuli.xyz
            1·
            6 days ago

            Then the experiments may be flawed. We dont know what we dont know, but we have calculated a lot of “supernatural” phenomenon like gravity, physics, and light, to be computable mathematical formulae. Is it unthinkable to believe that everything can be computation then, if we were aware of every variable involved?

            There are a near infinite number of variables involved, but if we knew every variable, we could solve it.

            • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
              11·
              6 days ago

              Then the experiments may be flawed. We dont know what we dont know

              That’s the same excuse flat Earthers make. Yes every single observation made over the past 100 years could have been wrong and tomorrow we find out that all of quantum mechanics is wrong.

              There are a near infinite number of variables involved, but if we knew every variable, we could solve it.

              Take a single electron. You can’t define it’s position and motion (momentum) simultaneously. It is fundamentally unsolvable. There aren’t even hidden variables that we are unaware of. Bell’s inequality has been experimentally proven many times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell’s_theorem

              • Oka@sopuli.xyz
                1·
                5 days ago

                Ok, so electrons act weird, that’s strong evidence that we still havent completely figured them out. They defy our expectations based on what we know. There’s the possibility that there’s something else at play that we don’t know, and maybe cannot fathom. We don’t know what we don’t know.

                • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
                  1·
                  5 days ago

                  There’s the possibility that there’s something else at play that we don’t know, and maybe cannot fathom.

                  The possibility that there is something hidden that we are not aware of is why Bell’s Theorem was such a revolution in physics. The experimental proof of Bell’s theorem won the nobel prize. There are no hidden variables. Probability is fundamental, not a result of some unknown process.

                  The premise wasn’t that the computer was 100% perfect. It was 99.9% perfect. That is its good enough such that you should assume its correct. The premise could have said 75% and it wouldn’t change anything. Saying 99% makes it simpler for the reader to assume that the computer is correct.

                  The computer is not supernatural. The premise does not say the computer is 100% accurate. The premise does not say that the computer can violate known laws of physics. The premise is that the computer knows your behavior.