Assuming that saving my child would give me X utility and saving the other child would give his parents X utility
This assumption is excluded by Kawoomba’s “but which I do not care about as much”, so isn’t directly relevant at this point (unless you are making a distinction between “caring” and “utility”, which should be more explicit).
I guess I’m just not sure why Kawoomba’s own utility gets special treatment over the other child’s parents utility function. Then again, your reply and my own sentence just now have me slightly confused, so I may need to think on this a bit more.
I guess I’m just not sure why Kawoomba’s own utility gets special treatment over the other child’s parents utility function.
Taboo “utility function”, and “Kawoomba cares about Kawoomba’s utility function” would resolve into the tautologous “Kawoomba is motivated by whatever it is that motivates Kawoomba”. The subtler problem is that it’s not a given that Kawoomba knows what motivates Kawoomba, so claims with certainty about what that is or isn’t (including those made by Kawoomba) may be unfounded. To the extent “utility function” refers to idealized extrapolated volition, rather than present desires, people won’t already have good understanding of even their own “utility function”.
The subtler problem is that it’s not a given that Kawoomba knows what motivates Kawoomba, so claims with certainty about what that is or isn’t (including those made by Kawoomba) may be unfounded.
There is no idealized extrapolated volition that is based on my current volition that would prefer someone else’s child over one of my own (CEV_me, not CEV_mankind). There are certainly inconsistencies in my non-idealized utility function, but that does not mean that every statement I make about my own utility function must be suspect, merely that such suspect/contradictory statements exist.
If you prefer vanilla over strawberry ice cream, there may be cases where that preference does not transfer to your extrapolated volition due to some other contradictory preferences. However, for comparisons with a significant delta involved, the initial result that determines your decision should be preserved. (It may however be different when extrapolating to a CEV for all humankind.)
Also, you used my name with a frequency of 7⁄84 in your last comment <3.
that does not mean that every statement I make about my own utility function must be suspect
In general, unless something is well-understood, there is good reason to suspect an error. Human values is not something that’s understood particularly well.
This assumption is excluded by Kawoomba’s “but which I do not care about as much”, so isn’t directly relevant at this point (unless you are making a distinction between “caring” and “utility”, which should be more explicit).
I guess I’m just not sure why Kawoomba’s own utility gets special treatment over the other child’s parents utility function. Then again, your reply and my own sentence just now have me slightly confused, so I may need to think on this a bit more.
Taboo “utility function”, and “Kawoomba cares about Kawoomba’s utility function” would resolve into the tautologous “Kawoomba is motivated by whatever it is that motivates Kawoomba”. The subtler problem is that it’s not a given that Kawoomba knows what motivates Kawoomba, so claims with certainty about what that is or isn’t (including those made by Kawoomba) may be unfounded. To the extent “utility function” refers to idealized extrapolated volition, rather than present desires, people won’t already have good understanding of even their own “utility function”.
There is no idealized extrapolated volition that is based on my current volition that would prefer someone else’s child over one of my own (CEV_me, not CEV_mankind). There are certainly inconsistencies in my non-idealized utility function, but that does not mean that every statement I make about my own utility function must be suspect, merely that such suspect/contradictory statements exist.
If you prefer vanilla over strawberry ice cream, there may be cases where that preference does not transfer to your extrapolated volition due to some other contradictory preferences. However, for comparisons with a significant delta involved, the initial result that determines your decision should be preserved. (It may however be different when extrapolating to a CEV for all humankind.)
Also, you used my name with a frequency of 7⁄84 in your last comment <3.
In general, unless something is well-understood, there is good reason to suspect an error. Human values is not something that’s understood particularly well.
If you value e.g. your family extremely higher than a grain of salt, would you say that there is any chance of that not being reflected in your CEV?
Any “CEV” that doesn’t conserve e.g. that particular relationship would be misnamed.