(April 19, 2015 at 12:15 am)robvalue Wrote: I'm about to go through one of two doors, a red and a blue one. ... God knows I was going to go through the red one. Could I have gone through the blue one?
I think your puzzle resembles a formulation of Newcomb's Paradox expressed by Martin Gardner in his July 1973 Scientific American column. Here, a "predictor" puts $1000 in a clear box, and either $1 million or nothing in an opaque box. Then, you choose either to take both boxes, or to take only the opaque box. If the predictor thought you'll take only the opaque box, then he put $1 million in it. If he thought you'll be greedy enough to take both boxes, he put nothing in the opaque one. So, what do you do? You always get at least $1000 if you take both boxes, and you might get nothing if you choose only the opaque box and the predictor was wrong.
What connects your problem with Newcomb's is that you ask "could I have made the other choice?" while premising that your predictor (God) is correct, while Newcomb asks "could my predictor be wrong?" while premising that he can in fact make the other choice.
The trap here is time-wise. Obviously you cannot go through the blue door if you've already went through the red one. However, before making your choice you presumably can still go through either door. Then the question becomes one of whether God really does know which door you will choose. In other words, pretty much the same as Newcomb's Paradox except without money behind the doors to motivate you.
But let me know if I'm wrong about all this.
