But—this is your utility using a new function.
If you can get more utility by changing your utility function, just change it to something easy, like “I value lying on my back in bed.”
Why do you assume that the difficulty of a modification to one’s utility function does not depend on the nature of the modification? This seems unlikely to be the case.
I agree with dlthomas. Certain modifications are certainly easier to make than others. It’s much easier to start liking britney spears (which i’ve recently been working on) than to start liking being dead, or sickness.
It’s not that bad of a choice, really. Liking or disliking Brittney Spears’s music doesn’t really matter much in the long run; she has a large corpus of performances for you to pick from; this corpus is freely available; and testing your success or failure is relatively easy.
But—this is your utility using a new function. If you can get more utility by changing your utility function, just change it to something easy, like “I value lying on my back in bed.”
(Wait, I already value that pretty highly...)
Why do you assume that the difficulty of a modification to one’s utility function does not depend on the nature of the modification? This seems unlikely to be the case.
It’s not a question of difficulty. It’s a question of whether it makes sense to adopt a new utility function in order to have higher utility.
I agree with dlthomas. Certain modifications are certainly easier to make than others. It’s much easier to start liking britney spears (which i’ve recently been working on) than to start liking being dead, or sickness.
Ok. I can’t help but wondering why of all the things to hack yourself to enjoy you would pick that. Never mind. I see that’s part of the point.
It’s not that bad of a choice, really. Liking or disliking Brittney Spears’s music doesn’t really matter much in the long run; she has a large corpus of performances for you to pick from; this corpus is freely available; and testing your success or failure is relatively easy.