Theory and Decision 54 (2):151-162 (2003)
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Abstract |
Newcomb's problem supposedly involves your choosing one or else two boxes in circumstances in which a predictor has made a prediction of how many boxes you will choose. We argue that the circumstances which allegedly define Newcomb's problem generate a previously unnoticed regress which shows that Newcomb's problem is insoluble because it is ill-formed. Those who favor, as we do, a ``no-box'' reply to Newcomb's problem typically claim either that the problem's solution is underdetermined or else that it is overdetermined. We are no-boxers of the first kind, but the underdetermination we identify is more radical than any previously identified: it blocks the very set-up of the problem and not just potential solutions to the problem once it has been set up. The defect is subtle, but it cripples every genuine version of the problem, regardless of variations in such things as the predictor's degree of reliability, the basis on which the prediction is made, or the amount of money in each box. The regress shows that, surprisingly enough, no one can understand Newcomb's problem, and so no one can possibly solve it
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Keywords | Economics / Management Science Economics/Management Science, general Operation Research/Decision Theory Methodology of the Social Sciences |
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DOI | 10.1023/A:1026249026940 |
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References found in this work BETA
Prisoners, Paradox, and Rationality.Lawrence H. Davis - 1977 - American Philosophical Quarterly 14 (4):319 - 327.
Background for the Uninitiated.Richmond Campbell - 1985 - In Richmond Campbell & Lanning Sowden (eds.), Paradoxes of Rationality and Cooperation: Prisoner's Dilemma and Newcomb's Problem. Vancouver: pp. 3-41.
Newcomb’s Paradox and the Direction of Causation.John L. Mackie - 1977 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 7 (2):213 - 225.
Citations of this work BETA
And So On. Two Theories of Regress Arguments in Philosophy.Jan Willem Wieland - 2012 - Dissertation,
Demons, Deceivers And Liars: Newcomb’s Malin Génie. [REVIEW]Peter Slezak - 2006 - Theory and Decision 61 (3):277-303.
Newcomb’s Problem and its Conditional Evidence: A Common Cause of Confusion.Simon Burgess - 2012 - Synthese 184 (3):319-339.
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