Consider the case where you are trying to value (a) just yourself versus (b) the set of all future yous that satisfy the constraint of not going into negative utility.
The shannon information of the set (b) could be (probably would be) lower than that of (a). To see this, note that the complexity (information) of the set of all future yous is just the info required to specify (you,now) (because to compute the time evolution of the set, you just need the initial condition), whereas the complexity (information) of just you is a series of snapshots (you, now), (you, 1 microsecond from now), … . This is like the difference between a JPEG and an MPEG. The complexity of the constraint probably won’t make up for this.
If the constraint of going into negative utility is particularly complex, one could pick a simple subset of nonnegative utility future yous, for example by specifying relatively simple constraints that ensure that the vast majority of yous satisfying those constraints don’t go into negative utility.
This is problematic because it means that you would assign less value to a large set of happy future yous than to just one future you. A large and exhaustive set of future happy yous is less complex (easier to specify) than just one.
I’m far from satisfied with the answer myself, but it’s the best I’ve got so far. :)
Consider the case where you are trying to value (a) just yourself versus (b) the set of all future yous that satisfy the constraint of not going into negative utility.
The shannon information of the set (b) could be (probably would be) lower than that of (a). To see this, note that the complexity (information) of the set of all future yous is just the info required to specify (you,now) (because to compute the time evolution of the set, you just need the initial condition), whereas the complexity (information) of just you is a series of snapshots (you, now), (you, 1 microsecond from now), … . This is like the difference between a JPEG and an MPEG. The complexity of the constraint probably won’t make up for this.
If the constraint of going into negative utility is particularly complex, one could pick a simple subset of nonnegative utility future yous, for example by specifying relatively simple constraints that ensure that the vast majority of yous satisfying those constraints don’t go into negative utility.
This is problematic because it means that you would assign less value to a large set of happy future yous than to just one future you. A large and exhaustive set of future happy yous is less complex (easier to specify) than just one.