Decision · experts disagree
Newcomb's problem
Devised by the physicist William Newcomb and published by Robert Nozick in 1969.
A predictor with a near-perfect record puts two boxes in front of you. Box A is transparent and holds 1,000 dollars. Box B is opaque. You may take both boxes, or box B alone. Yesterday the predictor decided what to put in box B: if it predicted you would take only box B, it put in a million dollars; if it predicted you would take both, it left box B empty. The predictor has done this with thousands of people and has been wrong only a handful of times. Everyone who took one box left rich; almost everyone who took two left with 1,000 dollars.
The money is already in the boxes or not. Nothing you do now changes that. Do you take both boxes, or box B alone?