23 May 2012
Lucia Windsor Room, Newnham College
Nozick's 1970 statement of Newcomb's problem inaugurated a dispute in the foundations of decision theory that at present shows no sign of resolution. The basic question is over the role of causal information in decision-making. Perhaps agents *must* possess such information in practical settings, in which case only a *Causal* Decision Theory can appropriately formalize practical reasoning. Or perhaps they need only possess whatever statistical and other non-causal information guides the predictions and retrodictions of disinterested spectators--in which case an *Evidential* theory is sufficient. Or perhaps the conflict is itself illusory: maybe causation itself is a form of evidential connection that is only visible from the agential perspective. This workshop presents recent and in-progress work on these issues.
Program
12pm-110pm: Caspar Hare / Brian Hedden (MIT): Self-Reinforcing and
Self-Undermining Decisions
110-2 Lunch: (own arrangements)
2-310: Arif Ahmed (Cambridge): Deliberation and myopia
315-425: Richard Holton / Caspar Hare (MIT): Determinism, Sloth and the
Opacity of the Future
425-450: Tea
450-6pm: Huw Price (Cambridge / Sydney): Retrocausality -- What would it
take?
Registration is free but if you are interested please email Arif Ahmed at ama24@cam.ac.uk to give us an idea of numbers.
