I went and read the background material on acausal trade and narrowed even further where it is I’m confused. It’s this paragraph:
> Another objection: Can an agent care about (have a utility function that takes into account) entities with which it can never interact, and about whose existence it is not certain? However, this is quite common even for humans today. We care about the suffering of other people in faraway lands about whom we know next to nothing. We are even disturbed by the suffering of long-dead historical people, and wish that, counterfactually, the suffering had not happened. We even care about entities that we are not sure exist. For example: We might be concerned by news report that a valuable archaeological artifact was destroyed in a distant country, yet at the same time read other news reports stating that the entire story is a fabrication and the artifact never existed. People even get emotionally attached to the fate of a fictional character.
My problem is lack of evidence that genuine caring about entities with which one can never interact really is “quite common even for humans today”, after factoring out indirect benefits/costs and social signalling.
How common, sincerely felt, and motivating should caring about such entities be for acausal trade to work?
Can you still use acausal trade to resolve various game-theory scenarios with agents whom you might later contact while putting zero priority on agents that are completely causally disconnected from you? If so, then why so much emphasis on permanently un-contactable agents? What does it add?
Update:
I went and read the background material on acausal trade and narrowed even further where it is I’m confused. It’s this paragraph:
> Another objection: Can an agent care about (have a utility function that takes into account) entities with which it can never interact, and about whose existence it is not certain? However, this is quite common even for humans today. We care about the suffering of other people in faraway lands about whom we know next to nothing. We are even disturbed by the suffering of long-dead historical people, and wish that, counterfactually, the suffering had not happened. We even care about entities that we are not sure exist. For example: We might be concerned by news report that a valuable archaeological artifact was destroyed in a distant country, yet at the same time read other news reports stating that the entire story is a fabrication and the artifact never existed. People even get emotionally attached to the fate of a fictional character.
My problem is lack of evidence that genuine caring about entities with which one can never interact really is “quite common even for humans today”, after factoring out indirect benefits/costs and social signalling.
How common, sincerely felt, and motivating should caring about such entities be for acausal trade to work?
Can you still use acausal trade to resolve various game-theory scenarios with agents whom you might later contact while putting zero priority on agents that are completely causally disconnected from you? If so, then why so much emphasis on permanently un-contactable agents? What does it add?