👨🏫 “So here’s the premise of Newcomb’s problem: Box A is transparent, and definitely has a thousand dollars in it.
Box B is opaque, and MIGHT have a million dollars in it.
😗 “Okay…”
👨🏫 “You have two options: You can take both Box A and Box B, or you can JUST take Box B.
BUT! There is a super computer. This super computer can predict with almost perfect accuracy whether you will take one or both boxes.
If it predicted you’d take BOTH boxes A and B, Box B will be empty.
If it predicted you’d ONLY take box B, Box B will have a million dollars.
This is only explained AFTER you enter the room, and you have no advanced knowledge before entering the room.”
😗 “So whether Box B has a million dollars in it is decided before I enter the room. What’s in it will not change.”
👨🏫 “Correct!”
😗 “And I have no advance knowledge of this challenge, and therefore no opportunity to try and trick the super computer. I cannot consciously influence its prediction.”
👨🏫 “Correct!”
😗 “By the time I’m in the room, it is literally impossible for me to change whether there is a million dollars in Box B.
The question may as well be simplified to ‘do you want to chance walking away without any prize money for no reason?’”
👨🏫 “Well, philosophically, there’s more nuance than—”
😗 “Even if I genuinely believed it made sense to only take Box B, nothing I do once in the room will change whether there’s a million dollars in Box B. That decision has already been made.
There is no objective benefit to not taking both boxes regardless of what I thought prior to entering the room.
The idea that I can manipulate the outcome by only taking Box B is an illusion of power. The only power I have in this situation is whether I’m out that thousand dollars.
I might not care about that thousand dollars if I get the million, but nothing changes if I only take Box B beyond not getting that thousand dollars.”
👨🏫 “What if the super computer is infallible and can’t be wrong?”
😗 “Then I fry it with my laser eyes.”
👨🏫 “What?”
😗 “If the super computer can be magic, I can have laser eyes.”
