Newcomb's Paradox
Version 1.0.0 · Updated 2026-07-28
CORE DEFINITION
In philosophy and mathematics, Newcomb's problem, also known as Newcomb's paradox, is a thought experiment posing a decision problem in which a player must decide whether to choose one of two or both boxes under conditions in which a being, often called the "predictor", decides in advance what they contain, and is able to predict the player's choices with near-certainty.
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In philosophy and mathematics, Newcomb's problem, also known as Newcomb's paradox, is a thought experiment posing a decision problem in which a player must decide whether to choose one of two or both
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Similar to Newcomb's paradox: when facing a superintelligence that can predict your choices, maximizing expected utility (evidential or causal) yields contradictory strategies, revealing deep conflicts among decision theories. The two principles give opposite conclusions about how many boxes to take, highlighting that rationality is not single-faceted.
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- en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_problemverified
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