A Problem You'll Never Solve
1,938,514
Published 2019-02-25
Before you play, an omniscient being has predicted whether you’d take both Box A and Box B or only Box B. If he’s predicted that you’ll take both, he’s put $0 in Box B. If he predicts that you’ll only take Box B, he’s put $1,000,000 inside. So… what do you do?
I explore the two approaches to this problem, one based on the math of expected utility and the other based on a logical dominance principle. Newcomb’s Paradox raises questions about free will and determinism as it explores whether a problem with no solution might be easier than a problem with two perfectly valid contradictory solutions.
** SOURCES **
“Newcomb's Problem And Two Principles Of Choice,” by Robert Nozick
faculty.arts.ubc.ca/rjohns/nozick_newcomb.pdf
Newcomb’s Paradox poll results from The Guardian:
www.theguardian.com/science/alexs-adventures-in-nu…
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Hosted, Produced, And Edited by Kevin Lieber
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Research And Writing by Matthew Tabor
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All Comments (21)
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Here's Robert Nozick's paper if you'd like to read more about this problem. faculty.arts.ubc.ca/rjohns/nozick_newcomb.pdf
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Me: Yes, obviously both Kevin: A magical genie predicted that and makes B worth 0 Me: That seems like it was an important part of the setup
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Chooses only box A Genie: Wait, that's illegal
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Kevin: Will you choose box B or both boxes? Me: Both Kevin: Now let me introduce the genie Me: well fu too then
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it's kind of a flawed question though, right? It really depends on how smart the genie is, if he is omniscient then choosing the second box is always the best choice.
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I choose box A. I'm not interested in the Genie's bullsh1t.
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vsauce: or is it? vsauce 2: WRONG
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The real question is, why would I really need 1,000,000 candies.
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The issue with strategic dominance in this scenario is that it has a fixed view of time, whereas in this situation, your choice has some effect on what is in the mystery box despite the contents already being decided.
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Kevin: you will take both boxes right? Me: knowing kevin WRONG Kevin: RIGHT Me: right? Kevin: Wrong
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Kevin the type of guy to actually count out 1000 candies.
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The problem is also that it’s never really made clear if the participant knows about the genie’s powers, or if the scenario is presents as it was in the first bit of the video. And if you know, can you outsmart the genie by thinking really hard about choosing one option and then switching suddenly? Can you mind-battle the genie? Or are you unaware of the genie the whole time?
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It always comes down to the accuracy of the prediction, if we know how often he is right we can do the math and figure out the best choice (box b method). If we dont know how often he is right we might as well pick both of them, since he could always be wrong. The aperant contradiction lies in the question that omited this crucial information to solve the problem. Therefore both explanations are correct given their assumptions and there is no contradiction
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I choose only box A. There is clearly not enough room for 1,000,000 candy in box B!
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The problem is that original question contains no information about a genie.
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I’m mad there wasn’t a poll
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It's a perfectly all-knowing genie at first, right? So the whole "but he's already put the candy in or he hasn't" premise doesn't hold. It breaks causality, therefore is no longer a game between the genie and me, but just a choice for me.
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How can we make the right choice when you keep adding new conditions
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"This question is actually a lot less simple than it seems... because here are completely game-changing additional parameters I didn't mention before." Eye roll.
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I think the expected value equation can be used to prove either case. If the genie is right most of the time, it is better to take just box B. If the genie is wrong most of the time, it is better to pick both. So I don't think this is so much an unanswerable question as it is a question that does not provide enough information to come to a provably better solution.
