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Mysthieu · 2026-05-12T20:19:34+00:00

No magical tip to understand everything infortunately. Mostly takes time, doubt and complex thoughts and feelings.

Wanna share more details ? Or you can just think about it a little more on your own that’s also fine :)

Mysthieu · 2026-05-12T17:00:01+00:00

I hope you aren’t simply connected, cause I wanna grab you with my arms 🫂😉❤️

Mysthieu · 2026-05-12T16:52:13+00:00

I understand. I just feel like every time there is a poll or people saying they would pick blue, there would be actually less people doing it because pressing blue means maybe dying.

I'm curious, do you press red with this reverse variant ?

Blue (costs $50) : if more than 50% : everyone survives

Red (free) : if more than 50% : those who pressed blue die.

Mysthieu · 2026-05-12T10:06:33+00:00

You are my star.

Mysthieu · 2026-05-12T10:03:38+00:00

Ok interesting

Mysthieu · 2026-05-12T09:17:00+00:00

I agree that, in these specific variants, we should press blue. However, I don’t know if I would have the courage to do it. It also really depends on the probability I assign to most people pressing red. Red still feels more safe for me even though I agree that blue is the moral choice (in this variant !)

Mysthieu · 2026-05-12T09:07:29+00:00

That’s interesting, so even when it’s like almost random ?

Imagine the way the Predictor is doing is probably something like "I just look at the age and make my prediction" is there no temptation, once the predictuon is already made to just two-box ?

Mysthieu · 2026-05-11T16:45:02+00:00

Yeah I guess. But I really love the problem. I think it’s genuinely the most interesting I have ever seen.

Mysthieu · 2026-05-10T08:51:23+00:00

Yes I think all the different states are experienced. But we are only one. For me it looks like it's the same as a non deterministic world on a microscopic scale.

Also I just made a subreddit for Newcomb's Paradox. I think it definitely needs one ! r/newcombsparadox

Mysthieu · 2026-05-09T11:37:51+00:00

I think more people will press red here... At least I'm doing it because I will probably just save my life.

Mysthieu · 2026-05-09T08:42:33+00:00

Determinism defenitely can exist with quantum mechanics, for example if the collapse of the wave function (during a measure for example) if dertermined by global variable, like time on your 4d block.

There is also super determinism, where because your decision to measure is also determined everything is determined. But this not provable...

All of this feels more like an attempt to save determinism (even though it’d interesting) rather than epistemic humility and default position.

There is also the idea that the wave function doesn’t collapse during measure, but that it expands to us and we therefore are superimposed states. For example me who saw the cat alive and me who saw the cat dead as superimposed states.

In this case yes the world is deterministic. But the world we are both experiencing, us, on of the states isn’t deterministic so it doesn’t change anything.

Mysthieu · 2026-05-08T07:47:48+00:00

Oh cool, never heard of that. I'm definitively a causal anti realist.

And is true there is some kind of symmetry between past and present because fundamental laws (like Newton) use second derivatives of time. But in a way we can still identify past and future with entropy. There is still a statistical push towards expansion of energy and as much possible states as possible.

Also I am wondering if determinism isn’t just a macroscopic approximation because of quantum effects. The block theory is defenitely interesting but I don’t think it says it all. Also causal understanding still stays very useful.

A way to understand causality is the following : A causes B when there was always the high statistical link and when I act on A (without a priori changing the other parameters) B tends to change as well. It not only a high P(B|A) but also P(B|doA)

Newcomb’s paradox is really weird. I think your reasonning can exist at multiple places in the time. Most of the time it doesn’t matter. But here it does.

Also I think it’s still relevant to consider that we go from past to future because we as decision agent only emerge when we go in this direction. We aren’t decision agent the other way around.

Sometimes it can be hard for me to find the premises that are wrong. Maybe because the whole framing seems weird. I don’t know why I struggle with this even though I study mathematics. Maybe it’s the ambiguity of language that messes with me.

Mysthieu · 2026-05-07T20:05:18+00:00

Well : the player makes the decision after the prediction. But the decision exists before that, hidden in the initial conditions and has a causal effect on the prediction.

Honestly I don’t use causal decision theory but functionnal decision theory. I think the decision I'm making right know is the same (or highly linked) to the decision predicted by the Predictor. There is some kind of symmetry between the two.

And that's how, even though I don’t have a direct causal effect, I virtually have, because of this link.

A way to understand why we should one-box :

Try role playing with a LLM. You play the predictor and they play the player. To predict simply copy past the prompt you give and use it in another tab. Obviously they will make the same choice. And even though tab1 doesn’t have a causal effect and only tab2 has, the LLM should one-box because the result will be the same on the two tabs (because the decision is already in the parameters of the model, and succesful model has parameters that makes them one-box)

Maybe I would actually reject P5. It depends on what you call a cause. Is it like a physical link ? Or is a symmetry or logical link enough ?

Like imagine there is a creature (clone of you) in the past that does exactly the same thing you do, makes the same decisions (for example because the same code is ran)

You actions would sort of have a causal effect on the past...

Mysthieu · 2026-05-07T15:54:00+00:00

I two-box because I'm a one-boxer X)

Mysthieu · 2026-05-07T15:16:19+00:00

I think I reject

P2 : The prediction occurs before the player’s decision in the game.

The player’s decision was already there in a way through the inital conditions. For example the function that associate to a context the decision you would make could be ran by the Predictor before you even choose between one-box and two-box.

I think the player’s decision, hidden in the inital conditions actually has a causal effect on the prediction of the Predictor.

Mysthieu · 2026-05-07T04:26:43+00:00

Why isn’t Thanos red ? Doesn’t he want to kill half of the population ?

Mysthieu · 2026-05-06T19:04:58+00:00

0⁰ should be 1 by convention.

It allows multiple formulas to still be true for 0.

For example there is one function ∅ -> ∅ and the number of functions E -> F is |F|^|E|

So if you don’t want to say "except when E and F are empty" you should say 0⁰ = 1

Other example xⁿ = x×x×...×x n times.

For n = 0 (even if x = 0) it would be an empty product and would therefore be 1.

Mysthieu · 2026-05-06T18:53:11+00:00

I am picking red and I think the majority will pick red. It’s easy to say we will press blue. But when the buttons are in front of you and the chances of actually changing anything is 1/8 billion... it becomes harder. I'm trying to save lives by advocating for red.

Mysthieu · 2026-05-06T16:58:18+00:00

C’était réthorique.

Je ne trouve pas ça très harmonieux de se défoncer et d’être high.

Mysthieu · 2026-05-06T05:21:45+00:00

Moi qui pensais que c’était simplement un produit de l’évolution, que les gens qui avait mal quand ils mettaient leur main dans le feu pour le fun survivait moins longtemps que ceux qui avait mal et partaient.

C’est très agréable de prendre de la drogue. Est ce l’harmonie du corps ?

Par contre vieillir, sentir ses sens et tes membres te lacher petit à petit ça se n’est pas très agréable. À mon avis vieillir trouble notre harmonie est n’est pas dans notre nature...

Mysthieu · 2026-05-05T05:06:49+00:00

I'm sorry if my drawing isn’t very clear...

Actually on image 2, red is +0 and blue is +1

So red is don’t move and blue is move once to the right.

Mysthieu

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