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Question about Newcomb’s paradox

שו”תCategory: philosophyQuestion about Newcomb’s paradox
asked 4 years ago

Hello Rabbi,
I read in the liberal sciences about Newcomb’s paradox, and I don’t understand the point.
If there is a prophet, he will always know what you will choose in the end, when a person comes to take the closed box and then decides to take both because he claims that the prophet has already chosen, all this philosophizing the prophet has already predicted that he will do, and therefore in the first place the prophet did not put anything in the empty box because he knew that the chooser would think that… (what I said before)
Thank you in advance.
 


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0 Answers
מיכי Staff answered 4 years ago
I can predict that too. After all, everyone predicts that the person will take both boxes and therefore leave the closed one empty. It’s like Moses’ prophecy, “And he turned thus and thus, and lo, there is no one,” which, according to Rashi, he saw that no one would come out of him who would convert. I also know how to fulfill that prophecy, for if I kill him, surely no one would come out of him. What I asked there is what is the optimal strategy that a person should choose. This is where you enter a loop.

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נתאי replied 4 years ago

I don't understand, unfortunately, what kind of loop…
You can ruminate and philosophize. It makes no difference to a prophet whether you changed your mind a thousand times or once and took the box. He will simply know what your last choice was and act accordingly…

מיכי Staff replied 4 years ago

I'm not asking how the prophet knows, but what the voter's strategy is supposed to be? Ostensibly to take only the closed one. Then it's supposed to be full. But now what prevents him from taking the open one as well? In any case, this is the preferred strategy from his perspective because what's in the closed one already exists. In other words, it's impossible that the strategy he has now is to take only the closed one because what's in the closed one already exists and he can only earn another thousand.

נ replied 4 years ago

So it may be that in such a case there is no possibility of advance knowledge.
But in the case that it is not the paradox will be like this. When the knowledge is in the sky for that matter.

עמנואל replied 4 years ago

There is another option: that his choice will change reality (i.e. that the money in the box will disappear). This is the least acceptable option for people. Because for them, it is changing reality in the past by an action from the future. But it is possible that the money will simply disappear at that moment. That is, a miracle. That is, that the prophecy created reality and not just reported it. It is also a type of foreknowledge (knowledge that creates reality), just not exactly knowledge like ours.

אברהם replied 2 years ago

Hello,
I just read this part of the second book of the trilogy and I have the same question as the one asked here.
I read your first and second answers and I still have a problem: It seems to me that there is a "game" here with the definitions of the paradox itself. If we are talking about a true prophet who is 100% right (although in the original article it is not exactly that), I think there is no scenario like you describe, namely that the person chooses the correct strategy – honestly choose the closed box for the million, open it and take the prize and then it costs him the interview to take the second one and add the thousand to the prize. It seems to me that the definition – in such a case when the person opened the closed box he would find it empty – since he is honest he would probably think that the prophet is a fraud and a liar who did not intend to pay him a million but that is not the point – If the prophet truly knows the future, he knows that the person is honest in his first choice and that the interview will cost him later and he will not be able to control himself and will take the second one as well, and therefore, when the closed box is opened, it will be empty.
Isn't that right?

מיכי Staff replied 2 years ago

Sorry, that's too much time to continue the discussion.

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