On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 1:51 AM, Jim Bromer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I don't want to get into a quibble fest, but understanding is not > necessarily constrained to prediction.
Indeed, "understanding" is a fuzzy word that means lots of different things in different contexts. In the context of Newcomb's paradox, however, the relevant concept is prediction. The logic here is similar to that of Goedel's theorem, and of Turing's proof of the unsolvability of the halting problem. It also relates to an even older question: if there exists an omniscient God, can He know in advance what we will do? Answer: even God can, in general, only know what the output of a program will be by actually running the program. He can only know our actions by watching to see what we actually do. ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=101455710-f059c4 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
