Mathematically, all that matters is the ratio of the differences in the utilities of the possible alternatives, so it’s not really important whether utilities are positive or negative. Informally, negative utility generally means something less desirable than the status quo.
I figure happiness is when you start wanting to do what you’re currently doing more. Negative utility is just when you want to do it more by a negative amount, i.e. you want to do it less.
Well, in the simplest case (when we are not talking being vs. non-being), the utility function is something that you can shift and even multiply by a constant. The only thing that matters for a selfish rational agent which either not considers ceasing to be or ascribes it some utility is ratio of utility differences. You usually maximize expected utility; and you do not care about absolute value, but only about the actions you are going to take. Shifts and multiplication by positive constants do not change any inequality with expectations of utilitiy. And shifts can make negative become positive and vice versa.
Now, if we consider moral questions with variable count of agents, we can find ourselves in a situation where we want to compare being to non-being—and some people implicity ascribe non-being utility zero. Also we can try to find a common scale for the wish intensities different people have. Buddhism with its stopping of reincarnation seems to ascribe negative utility to any form of being before transcending into nirvana. Whether it is better not to be born or to be born into modern world in Africa is a question that can get different answers in Western Europe; now, we can expect that as accurate a description as possible of Western Europe could cause a pharaoh of Egypt say that it is better not to be born than to be born into this scary world.
A thing has negative utility equal to the positive utility that would be gained from that thing’s removal. Or, more formally, for any state X such that the utility of X is Y, the utility of the state ~X is -Y.
Humans don’t distinguish between the utility for different microscopic states of the world. Nobody cares if air molecule 12445 is shifted 3 microns to the right, since that doesn’t have any noticable effects on our experiences. As such, a state (at least for the purposes of that definition of utility) is a macroscopic state.
“~X” means, as in logic, “not X”. Since we’re interested in the negative utility of the floor being clear, in the above case X is “the airplane’s floor being clear” and ~X is “the airplane’s floor being opaque but otherwise identical to a human observer”.
In reality, you probably aren’t going to get a material that is exactly the same structurally as the clear floor, but that shouldn’t stop you from applying the idea in principle. After all, you could probably get reasonably close by spray painting the floor.
To steal from Hofstadter, we’re interested in the positive utility derived from whatever substrate level changes would result in an inversion of our mind’s symbol level understanding of the property or object in question.
In that formulation, addition of the thing has utility equal to minus the utility of removal of the same thing. And that only if addition/removal can be defined.
About states—there are too many of them, some are macroscopically different but irrelevant to human untility (I am next to sure it is possible to shift some distant galaxies in a way that many sapient being will be able to see different sky and none would care).
The meaningful thing is ratio of utility differentials between some states.
How is this defined? If an airplane has a clear floor such that its passengers vomit whenever they look down, removing the floor would put them in an even worse position. We want to remove only the property of transparency, which would involve replacing the clear material with an entirely different opaque material that had all other properties identical.
What’s troubling to me about the counterfactual is that it doesn’t seem to have an objective baseline, a single thing that is ~X, so we are left comparing Y(X) with Y(Z), the utility of thing X instead of thing Z. I’m not sure how valid it is to talk about simply removing properties because the set of higher level properties depends on the arrangement of atoms. It seems like properties are their own thing that can be individually mixed and matched separate from material but they really can’t be.
If we’re using ‘the object in question doesn’t exist’ as the baseline for comparison, I’d say that the clear floor actually has positive utility. That’s just counter-intuitive because we have such a strong tendency to think of the case that’s currently normal as the baseline, rather than the ‘doesn’t exist’ case.
I do agree that neither of those baselines is objectively correct in any sense (though the ‘doesn’t exist’ one seems a bit more coherent and stable if we find a need to choose one), and that remembering that properties don’t have independent existence is generally useful when considering possible cases.
Negative utility: how does it differ from positive utility, and what is the relationship between the two?
Useful analogies might include the relationship of positive numbers to negative ones, the relationship of hot to cold, or other.
Mathematically, all that matters is the ratio of the differences in the utilities of the possible alternatives, so it’s not really important whether utilities are positive or negative. Informally, negative utility generally means something less desirable than the status quo.
I figure happiness is when you start wanting to do what you’re currently doing more. Negative utility is just when you want to do it more by a negative amount, i.e. you want to do it less.
Well, in the simplest case (when we are not talking being vs. non-being), the utility function is something that you can shift and even multiply by a constant. The only thing that matters for a selfish rational agent which either not considers ceasing to be or ascribes it some utility is ratio of utility differences. You usually maximize expected utility; and you do not care about absolute value, but only about the actions you are going to take. Shifts and multiplication by positive constants do not change any inequality with expectations of utilitiy. And shifts can make negative become positive and vice versa.
Now, if we consider moral questions with variable count of agents, we can find ourselves in a situation where we want to compare being to non-being—and some people implicity ascribe non-being utility zero. Also we can try to find a common scale for the wish intensities different people have. Buddhism with its stopping of reincarnation seems to ascribe negative utility to any form of being before transcending into nirvana. Whether it is better not to be born or to be born into modern world in Africa is a question that can get different answers in Western Europe; now, we can expect that as accurate a description as possible of Western Europe could cause a pharaoh of Egypt say that it is better not to be born than to be born into this scary world.
A thing has negative utility equal to the positive utility that would be gained from that thing’s removal. Or, more formally, for any state X such that the utility of X is Y, the utility of the state ~X is -Y.
Yep, definitely needs some clarification there.
Humans don’t distinguish between the utility for different microscopic states of the world. Nobody cares if air molecule 12445 is shifted 3 microns to the right, since that doesn’t have any noticable effects on our experiences. As such, a state (at least for the purposes of that definition of utility) is a macroscopic state.
“~X” means, as in logic, “not X”. Since we’re interested in the negative utility of the floor being clear, in the above case X is “the airplane’s floor being clear” and ~X is “the airplane’s floor being opaque but otherwise identical to a human observer”.
In reality, you probably aren’t going to get a material that is exactly the same structurally as the clear floor, but that shouldn’t stop you from applying the idea in principle. After all, you could probably get reasonably close by spray painting the floor.
To steal from Hofstadter, we’re interested in the positive utility derived from whatever substrate level changes would result in an inversion of our mind’s symbol level understanding of the property or object in question.
I think you need to be more precise about what states and ~ are.
In that formulation, addition of the thing has utility equal to minus the utility of removal of the same thing. And that only if addition/removal can be defined.
About states—there are too many of them, some are macroscopically different but irrelevant to human untility (I am next to sure it is possible to shift some distant galaxies in a way that many sapient being will be able to see different sky and none would care).
The meaningful thing is ratio of utility differentials between some states.
How is this defined? If an airplane has a clear floor such that its passengers vomit whenever they look down, removing the floor would put them in an even worse position. We want to remove only the property of transparency, which would involve replacing the clear material with an entirely different opaque material that had all other properties identical.
What’s troubling to me about the counterfactual is that it doesn’t seem to have an objective baseline, a single thing that is ~X, so we are left comparing Y(X) with Y(Z), the utility of thing X instead of thing Z. I’m not sure how valid it is to talk about simply removing properties because the set of higher level properties depends on the arrangement of atoms. It seems like properties are their own thing that can be individually mixed and matched separate from material but they really can’t be.
If we’re using ‘the object in question doesn’t exist’ as the baseline for comparison, I’d say that the clear floor actually has positive utility. That’s just counter-intuitive because we have such a strong tendency to think of the case that’s currently normal as the baseline, rather than the ‘doesn’t exist’ case.
I do agree that neither of those baselines is objectively correct in any sense (though the ‘doesn’t exist’ one seems a bit more coherent and stable if we find a need to choose one), and that remembering that properties don’t have independent existence is generally useful when considering possible cases.