[extropy-chat] Superrationality

[Russell Wallace]

On 5/19/06, "Hal Finney" <hal at finney.org> wrote:
>
> The connection to superrationality is that it is another example of
> evidentiary reasoning, like the case of taking just one box in the
> Newcomb paradox.  Cooperating in the one-shot PD gives you evidence,
> per the standard superrationality reasoning, that the other player will
> also cooperate.  (Likewise, defecting would give you evidence that
> he will defect.)  However, it does not *cause* him to act that way.
> Your choice has no direct causal consequences on the other player,
> it merely gives you evidence about how he is likely to behave.


Yep. In Newcomb's Paradox, the answer to this is to increase the accuracy of
the prediction, to the ultimate case where the prediction is made by running
an exact copy of you through an exact copy of the test; this is equivalent
to increasing the similarity of the partners in the one-shot PD, to the
ultimate case where the other player is your mirror image. Once you do this,
there _is_ a causal link between your decision and the outcome, and it again
becomes rational to cooperate.

(For how there can be that sort of "reverse causality" in the extreme
version of Newcomb's Paradox, see http://www.sl4.org/archive/0305/6638.html)
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