Disputes between evidential decision theory and causal decision theory have continued for decades, and many theorists state dissatisfaction with both alternatives. Timeless decision theory (TDT) is an extension of causal decision networks that compactly represents uncertainty about correlated computational processes and represents the decisionmaker as such a process. This simple extension enabl...

We describe a framework for specifying conditional desires “desire CY by E degrees if ,8” and evaluating preference queries “would you prefer ~1 over ~2 given $” under uncertainty. We refine the semantics presented in (Tan & Pearl 1994) to allow conditional desires to be overridden by more specific desires in the database. Within this framework, we also enable consideration of surprising worlds...

A new laboratory experiment is designed to identify the best theories for describing decisions under risk. The experimental design has two noteworthy features: a representative sample of binary choice problems (for fair comparison across theories) and a lottery set with a small number of outcomes and probabilities (for ease of non-parametric estimation). We find that a simple heuristic, rank-de...