Newcomb's Paradox

[Anomalocaris]

I can defeat any amount of goodness in his ability to predict my decision by randomizing my decision,   So if he is really good at predicting my decisions, he would predict I would decide to make a random decision that he can not predict except by random chance.

According to the conundrum, the Predictor knows, without possibility of error, which choice you will make. Randomness is not a factor.

When answering a paradox, the respondents are not permitted to add provisos of their own.

Boru

If my choice is not to make the choice myself but let a flip of the coin decide?

[GrandizerII]

[Angrboda]

I feel boxed in.

[Kitan Etos]

Just think outside the box.

[GrandizerII]

I misread the OP - choosing Box A only is not an option. In that case, choosing both boxes is a marginally better option, as you’re guaranteed at least $1000. Choosing Box B only gives you a 50% chance of walking away with bupkis.

Boru

I agree that, per the prediction the Predictor makes, two-boxing always yields the better outcome. However, how I see it is like this:

1. If I choose Box B only, there is an incredibly high chance of walking away with $1000000 since the Predictor would've most probably predicted I would do so.

2. If I two-box instead, there is an incredibly high chance of only getting $1000 since the Predictor would've most probably predicted I would do so, and therefore Box B would contain nothing.

Therefore, it seems like one-boxing is the way to go. Sure, two-boxing instead of one-boxing would net me $1001000 if the Predictor predicts wrongly that I would one-box, but it seems to me like there is an incredibly low chance of that happening.

---

The crazy thing about this just now is that while I'm feeling confident about my answer here (and so have posted this), I'm also now in two minds about this. I feel like I contradicted myself, soo let me think about this more to make sure I didn't.

[GrandizerII]

Let's consider the following:

Suppose you are familiar with puzzle and realize it's always better to two-box (since once you're in front of the two boxes, the prediction has already been made, and no matter what the prediction would be, you always net more by two-boxing).

One day, you actually end up in this scenario yourself. So since you're familiar with the puzzle, and you've already concluded that two-boxing is the way to go, you are most likely going to get $1000, which is better than nothing, of course. And if by luck, the Predictor ended up making a wrong prediction here, then you end up with the big gain of $1,001,000.

But this is about odds here as well, and not just about what nets the biggest gain. And you are more likely to get $1,000,000 by one-boxing than $1,001,000 by two-boxing.

Hence, I still go with one-boxing ... for now.

Though I'm seeing more and more what's tricky about this problem.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

According to the conundrum, the Predictor knows, without possibility of error, which choice you will make. Randomness is not a factor.

When answering a paradox, the respondents are not permitted to add provisos of their own.

Boru

If my choice is not to make the choice myself but let a flip of the coin decide?

That still involves a choice - you have to decide which side of the coin represents which box. The Predictor will still pre-know the outcome.

Boru

[brewer]

I'm not choosing a box.

Have you considered that you might be a box?

[Nay_Sayer]

Ok, Who took all my boxes from my attic?!

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Ok,  Who took all my boxes from my attic?!

Schroedinger. I suspect that you may or may not be missing some cats as well.

Boru