A fully adequate solution to Newcomb’s Problem (Nozick 1969) should reveal the source of its extraordinary elusiveness and persistent intractability. Recently, a few accounts have independently sought to meet this criterion of adequacy by exposing the underlying source of the problem’s profound puzzlement. Thus, Sorensen (1987), Slezak (1998), Priest (2002) and Maitzen and Wilson (2003) share the ‘no box’ view according to which the very idea that there is a right choice is misconceived since the problem is ill-formed or incoherent (...) in some way. Among proponents of this view, Richard Jeffrey (2004) recently declared that he renounces his earlier position that accepted Newcomb problems as genuine decision problems. Significantly, Jeffrey suggests that “Newcomb problems are like Escher’s famous staircase on which an unbroken ascent takes you back where you started” (Jeffrey (2004; 113)). Jeffrey’s analogy is apt for a puzzle whose specific logical features can be precisely articulated. Along the lines of these related approaches, I propose to improve and clarify them by providing such a deeper analysis that elucidates their essential, related insights. (shrink)

Newcomb’s problem involves a decision-maker faced with a choice and a predictor forecasting this choice. The agents’ interaction seems to generate a choice dilemma once the decision-maker seeks to apply two basic principles of rational choice theory : maximize expected utility ; adopt the dominant strategy. We review unsuccessful attempts at pacifying the dilemma by excluding Newcomb’s problem as an RCT-application, by restricting MEU and ADS, and by allowing for backward causation. A probability approach shows that Newcomb’s original problem-formulation lacks (...) causal information. This makes it impossible to specify the probability structure of Newcomb’s univocally. Once missing information is added, Newcomb’s problem and RCT re-align, thus explaining Newcomb’s problem as a seeming dilemma. Building on Wolpert and Benford :1637–1646, 2013), we supply additional details and offer a crucial correction to their formal proof. (shrink)

Richard Jeffrey said that Newcomb’s Problem may be seen “as a rock on which... Bayesianism... must founder” and the problem has been almost universally conceived as reconciling the science-fictional features of the decision problem with a plausible causal analysis. Later, Jeffrey renounced his earlier position that accepted Newcomb problems as genuine decision problems, suggesting “Newcomb problems are like Escher’s famous staircase”. We may interpret this to mean that we know there can be no such thing, though we see no local (...) flaw in the puzzle. In this paper, I develop the critique of Slezak to show that Jeffrey’s analogy is apt for a puzzle whose logical features can be precisely articulated and I propose an easily realizable experiment that convincingly supports this analysis. I suggest that these real-life analogs of Newcomb’s Problem have diverted attention from the essential function of the science-fiction of a predicting demon. Following Eells, similarities with realistic problems such as Prisoner’s Dilemma and common cause cases have suggested that Newcomb’s Problem may be given a coherent description and realized in some way consistent with classical causation. However, the peculiarity of the apparent link between one’s choice and the previously determined contents of the second box is the central, defining feature of Newcomb’s Problem. I argue that the predictor may not be merely a fiction providing insufficient “extra information” as both McKay and Levi suggest. Rather, I suggest that the decision problem permits a precise specification revealing the source of the notorious perplexity. Notwithstanding efforts to rescue the coherence of Newcomb’s Problem and a classical causal account, a simulation of the decision problem establishes the correctness of my analysis and, thereby, hopefully ending the debate. (shrink)