David Wolpert and Gregory Benford point out that paradoxes arise when not all relevant details of a problem are specified, and there is more than one "intuitively obvious" way to fill in those missing details. They suggest that, in Newcomb's paradox, the debate over which strategy is 'obviously correct' stems from the fact that interpreting the problem details differently can lead to two distinct noncooperative games. Each strategy is optimal for one interpretation of the game but not the other. They then derive the optimal strategies for both of the games, which turn out to be independent of the predictor's infallibility, questions of causality, determinism, and free will.
David Wolpert and Gregory Benford point out that paradoxes arise when not all relevant details of a problem are specified, and there is more than one "intuitively obvious" way to fill in those missing details. They suggest that, in Newcomb's paradox, the debate over which strategy is 'obviously correct' stems from the fact that interpreting the problem details differently can lead to two distinct noncooperative games. Each strategy is optimal fo.r one interpretation of the game but not the other They then derive the optimal strategies for both of the games, which turn out to be independent of the predictor's infallibility, questions of causality, determinism, and free will.