Kavka's Toxin Puzzle
Updated 2026-08-03
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
Kavka's toxin puzzle, posed by philosopher Gregory Kavka, runs as follows: a billionaire offers you one million dollars if a mind-reading machine judges that tonight you genuinely intend to drink a painful but harmless toxin tomorrow. You can change your mind after being paid and need never drink it. The trap is that a purely rational agent cannot form the required intention at all, since it knows that once the money arrives, it will have no reason whatsoever to drink. The puzzle exposes the tension between intention and self-interest.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Intention audit: Ask whether a commitment you are forming is one you will still have a reason to honor later. - External binding: When sincerity alone cannot be manufactured, bind yourself with an irrevocable outside commitment. - Rationality limit: Accept that some games are won only by constraining your own future freedom.
Anchor fast decisions
Intentions are beliefs about your own future action, and they must survive the moment of choice to count as genuine. When the payoff arrives before the action and the action carries no later benefit, no amount of calculation can make the intention sincere, because the future self will always rationally defect. Only an agent that is partly irrational, or that has pre-committed irreversibly, can hold the required state of mind, which is why sincerity and calculation come apart here.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kavka's_toxin_puzzleverified
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