The simulation dilemma intuitively seems similar to Newcomb’s Paradox. However, when I try to reason out how it is similar, I have difficulty. They both involve two parties, with one having more control/information advantage over the other. They both involve an option with guaranteed rewards (hedonism or the $1,000) and one with an uncertain reward (longtermism or possible $1,000,000). They both involve an option that would exclude one of two possibilities. How the prediction of a predictor in Newcomb’s Paradox that may exclude one of two possibilities directly correlates with the mutually exclusive possibilities in the simulation dilemma is not clear though.
Simulations might be useful to find out what factors were important/unimportant and alternative trajectories of critical periods of history. For that reason, it is an appealing idea that it is more likely that we are just in a simulation of our current period and not really in it.
The simulation dilemma intuitively seems similar to Newcomb’s Paradox. However, when I try to reason out how it is similar, I have difficulty. They both involve two parties, with one having more control/information advantage over the other. They both involve an option with guaranteed rewards (hedonism or the $1,000) and one with an uncertain reward (longtermism or possible $1,000,000). They both involve an option that would exclude one of two possibilities. How the prediction of a predictor in Newcomb’s Paradox that may exclude one of two possibilities directly correlates with the mutually exclusive possibilities in the simulation dilemma is not clear though.
Simulations might be useful to find out what factors were important/unimportant and alternative trajectories of critical periods of history. For that reason, it is an appealing idea that it is more likely that we are just in a simulation of our current period and not really in it.