A Puzzle For Your Thoughts

"To almost everyone, it is perfectly clear and obvious what should be done. The difficulty is that these people seem to divide almost evenly on the problem, with large numbers thinking that the opposing half is just being silly." (Robert Nozick)

Consider the following situation:

You walk into a room and are presented with 2 boxes; one made of glass and the other of cardboard. While you can’t tell what’s inside the cardboard box, you can clearly see $100 in the glass box. You’re told by the room’s attendant that you’ve got a choice to make. You can either: take what’s in the cardboard box only, or take what’s in both boxes. But, before making your choice, the attendant also says that “the predictor” has already predicted your decision. He tells you that the predictor has a virtually perfect track record – for however long “the predictor” and the attendant have been running this game, and it’s been going on for a while, the prediction has almost always been right. The attendant also tells you that IF “the predictor” predicted that you would pick just the cardboard box, he put $1,000,000 in it. But, IF “the predictor” predicted that you’d pick both boxes, he’d put a turnip in the cardboard box. So what do ya do? Just go with the cardboard box (call that choice ‘one-boxing’)? Or grab both boxes (call that ‘two-boxing’)?

Here’s why you might think you should one-boxing: “the predictor” has a nearly perfect track record for predicting what people in this situation will do. So, if you just go with the cardboard box, it’s pretty likely that he’d have predicted that and placed $1,000,000 in it. So if you were to one-box you’d likely end up with $1,000,000. Whereas if you were to two-box, he, surely, would have predicted that and placed a turnip in the cardboard box instead. So if you two-box you’re likely to end up with $100 plus a turnip (yuck). Since you prefer $1,000,000 over $100-and-a-turnip, you should one-box.

But, on the other hand, here’s why you might two-box: Look, “the predictor” made his prediction before you’ll make your decision (in fact he made his prediction before you even entered the room). So, regardless of what he thinks you’ll do, it’s already a fact that there’s either $1,000,000 in the cardboard box or a turnip. Nothing you do at this point will change that. So you should just two-box because your choices boil down to this: the turnip in the cardboard (if he predicted you’d two-box) plus $100 (from the glass box) or $1,000,000 (if he predicted you’d one-box) plus $100. In other words, your possible outcomes are: $100-and-a-turnip or $1,000,100. Either way, you’re $100 better off if you two-box. Therefore, you should two-box.

So what would YOU do? Are you a one-boxer? Or a two-boxer? Post your answer (and rationale, if you want) in a comment!

This scenario is known as Newcomb’s Problem; some have argued that it’s essentially the same thing as the famous Prisoner’s Dilemma, while others maintain that they’re totally different. Regardless, thought, this is a classic paradox. By that I mean it’s a philosophical paradox. A philosophical paradox is a little different than what we mean when we talk about paradoxes colloquially. After all, it might seem “paradoxical” when your girlfriend says she loves you but goes around making out with other people. But that’s not genuinely paradoxical (really, she’s just a bitch). Something is philosophically paradoxical if there are two persuasive arguments that have contradictory conclusions (like above), or an argument which contradicts and baffles our intuitions (like the Traveler’s Dilemma). When thinking about paradoxes, you end up running circles around in your reasoning process. I think they’re interesting, fun, and often shake the foundations of our beliefs. But maybe I’m on my own thinking there something worth talking about here. I could say more, but I think that’s enough for now. This is just my spur-of-the-moment thoughts on the subject. I could be wrong. After all, what do I know.