So I've previously blogged on the Sleeping Beauty problem as well as on Newcomb's Paradox. The latter has caused some considerable discussion amongst myself and a couple of colleagues, and to my delight we don't all agree on it.
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I'll probably post further on it as the discussion develops, but I stumbled across an interesting overlap between the two.
In order for Newcomb's Predictor to do the prediction, he must presumably either read some memory of previous discussion (so poor old Chaz, having been introduced to it and found himself a two-boxer is doomed to not win the £10 million!) or somehow simulate the event.
Being a fairly materialist person, I strongly suspect that a simulation of myself would be self-aware just as I am. In that case, on meeting the Predictor and being presented with two boxes, I have no idea if I am really me or a simulated me for the purposes of the Prediction.
In that case, I am rather likely Sleeping Beauty, about to have her memory wiped.
I may make a choice only to cease to be, with that choice acting causally forwards in time in order to allow the apparent violation of causality that would allow the Predictor to act as described in the problem.
In that case, although I may be a firm believer in causality and that future actions cannot affect the past, I may have good reason to believe that in this particular circumstance my actions may well effectively do that.
It's an interesting crossover, but really this little curiosity is either a sidetrack or a weakener of the core issues that make this such a puzzler.
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