Now suppose that the agent’s preferences violate the Von Neumann-Morgenstern axioms, so that in one situation it prefers to make a deal that causes it to end up with an apple rather than an orange, and in another situation it prefers to make a deal that causes it to end up with an orange rather than an apple. Is that an argument against having circular preferences?
I’m not sure I follow in what sense this is a violation of the vNM axioms. A vNM agent has preferences over world-histories; in general one can’t isolate the effect of having an apple vs. having an orange without looking at how that affects the entire future history of the world.
Right, I was trying to say “it prefers an apple to an orange and an orange to an apple in such a way that does violate the axioms”. But I was unsure of what example to actually give of that, since I’m unsure of what real-life situations really would violate the axioms.
The example that comes to mind to show the how the sex thing isn’t a problem is that of a robot car with a goal to drive as many miles as possible. Every day it will burn through all its fuel and fuel up. Right after it fuels up, it will have no desire for further fuel—more fuel simply does not help it go further at this point, and forcing it can be detrimental. Clearly not contradictory
You could have a similar situation with a couple wanting sex iff they haven’t had sex in a day, or wanting an orange if you’ve just eaten an apple but wanting an apple if you’ve just eaten an orange.
To strictly show that something violates vNM axioms, you’d have to show that this behavior (in context) can’t be fulfilling any preferences better than other options that the agent is aware of—or at least be able to argue that the revealed utility function is contrived and unlikely to hold up in other situations (not what the agent “really wants”).
Constantly wanting what one doesn’t have can have this defect. If I keep paying you to switch my apple for your orange and back (without actually eating either), then you have a decent case, if you’re pretty confident I’m not actually fulfilling my desire to troll you ;)
The “want’s a relationship when single” and “wants to be single when not” thing does look like such a violation to me. If you let him flip flop as often as he desires, he’s not going to end up happily endorsing his past actions. If you offered him a pill that would prevent him from flip flopping, he very well may take it. So there’s a contradiction there.
To bring human-specific psychology into it, its not that his inherent desires are contradictory, but that he wants something like “freedom”, which he doesn’t know how to get in a relationship and something like “intimacy”, which he doesn’t know how to get while single. It’s not that he want’s intimacy when single and freedom when not, it’s that he wants both always, but the unfulfilled need is the salient one.
Picture me standing on your left foot. “Oww! Get off my left foot!”. Then I switch to the right “Ahh! Get off my right foot!”. If you’re not very quick and/or the pain is overwhelming, it might take you a few iterations to realize the situation you’re in and to put the pain aside while you think of a way to get me off both feet (intimacy when single/freedom in a relationship). Or if you can’t have that, it’s another challenge to figure out what you want to do about it.
I wouldn’t model you as “just VNM-irrational”, even if your external behaviors are ineffective for everything you might want. I’d model you as “not knowing how to be VNM-rational in presence of strong pain(s)”, and would expect you to start behaving more effectively when shown how.
(and that is what I find, although showing someone how to be more rational is not trivial and “here’s a proof of the inconsistency of your actions now pick a side and stop feeling the desire for the other side” is almost never sufficient. You have to be able to model the specific way that they’re stuck and meet them there)
tl;dr: We’re not VNM-rational because we don’t know how to be, not because it’s not something we’re trying to do.
How do you distinguish his preferences being irrationally inconsistent (he is worse off from entering and leaving relationships repeatedly) from him truly wanting to be in relationships periodically (like how it’s rational to alternate between sleeping and waking rather than always doing one or the other)?
If there’s a pill that can make him stop switching (but doesn’t change his preferences), one of two things will happen: either he’ll never be in a relationship (prevented from entering), or he’ll stay in his current relationship forever (prevented from leaving). I wouldn’t be surprised if he dislikes both of the outcomes and decides not to take the pill.
The pill could instead change his preferences so that he no longer wants to flip-flop, but this argument seems too general—why not just give him a pill that makes him like everything much more than he does now? If my behavior is irrational, I should be able to make myself better off simply by changing my behavior, without having to modify my preferences.
How do you distinguish his preferences being irrationally inconsistent [...] from him truly wanting to be in relationships periodically[...]?
By talking to him. If it’s the latter, he’ll be able to say he prefers flip flopping like it’s just a matter of fact and if you probe into why he likes flip flopping, he’ll either have an answer that makes sense or he’ll talk about it in a way that shows that he is comfortable with not knowing. If it’s the former, he’ll probably say that he doesn’t like flip flopping, and if he doesn’t, it’ll leak signs of bullshit. It’ll come off like he’s trying to convince you of something because he is. And if you probe his answers for inconsistencies he’ll get hostile because he doesn’t want you to.
I’m not sure where you’re going with the “magic pill” hypotheticals, but I agree. The only thing I can think to add is that a lot of times the “winning behaviors” are largely mental and aren’t really available until you understand the situation better.
For example, if you break your foot and can’t get it x-rayed for a day, the right answer might be to just get some writing done—but if you try to force that behavior while you’re suffering, it’s not gonna go well. You have to actually be able to dismiss the pain signal before you have a mental space to write in.
I’m not sure where you’re going with the “magic pill” hypotheticals, but I agree.
I meant that if someone is behaving irrationally, forcing them to stop that behavior should make them better off. But it seems unlikely to me that forcing him to stay in his current relationship forever, or preventing him from ever entering a relationship (these are the two ways he can be stopped from flip-flopping) actually benefit him.
Forcing anyone to stay in their current relationship forever or forever preventing them from entering a relationship would be quite bad. In order to help him, he’d have to be doing worse than that.
The way to help him would be a bit trickier than that: let him have “good” relationships but not bad. Let him leave “bad” relationships but not good. And then control his mental behaviors so that he’s not allowed to spend time being miserable about his lack of options… (it’s hard to force rationality)
Controlling his mental behaviors would either be changing his preferences or giving him another option. For judging whether he is behaving irrationally, shouldn’t his preferences and set of choices be held fixed?
I’m not sure I follow in what sense this is a violation of the vNM axioms. A vNM agent has preferences over world-histories; in general one can’t isolate the effect of having an apple vs. having an orange without looking at how that affects the entire future history of the world.
Right, I was trying to say “it prefers an apple to an orange and an orange to an apple in such a way that does violate the axioms”. But I was unsure of what example to actually give of that, since I’m unsure of what real-life situations really would violate the axioms.
The example that comes to mind to show the how the sex thing isn’t a problem is that of a robot car with a goal to drive as many miles as possible. Every day it will burn through all its fuel and fuel up. Right after it fuels up, it will have no desire for further fuel—more fuel simply does not help it go further at this point, and forcing it can be detrimental. Clearly not contradictory
You could have a similar situation with a couple wanting sex iff they haven’t had sex in a day, or wanting an orange if you’ve just eaten an apple but wanting an apple if you’ve just eaten an orange.
To strictly show that something violates vNM axioms, you’d have to show that this behavior (in context) can’t be fulfilling any preferences better than other options that the agent is aware of—or at least be able to argue that the revealed utility function is contrived and unlikely to hold up in other situations (not what the agent “really wants”).
Constantly wanting what one doesn’t have can have this defect. If I keep paying you to switch my apple for your orange and back (without actually eating either), then you have a decent case, if you’re pretty confident I’m not actually fulfilling my desire to troll you ;)
The “want’s a relationship when single” and “wants to be single when not” thing does look like such a violation to me. If you let him flip flop as often as he desires, he’s not going to end up happily endorsing his past actions. If you offered him a pill that would prevent him from flip flopping, he very well may take it. So there’s a contradiction there.
To bring human-specific psychology into it, its not that his inherent desires are contradictory, but that he wants something like “freedom”, which he doesn’t know how to get in a relationship and something like “intimacy”, which he doesn’t know how to get while single. It’s not that he want’s intimacy when single and freedom when not, it’s that he wants both always, but the unfulfilled need is the salient one.
Picture me standing on your left foot. “Oww! Get off my left foot!”. Then I switch to the right “Ahh! Get off my right foot!”. If you’re not very quick and/or the pain is overwhelming, it might take you a few iterations to realize the situation you’re in and to put the pain aside while you think of a way to get me off both feet (intimacy when single/freedom in a relationship). Or if you can’t have that, it’s another challenge to figure out what you want to do about it.
I wouldn’t model you as “just VNM-irrational”, even if your external behaviors are ineffective for everything you might want. I’d model you as “not knowing how to be VNM-rational in presence of strong pain(s)”, and would expect you to start behaving more effectively when shown how.
(and that is what I find, although showing someone how to be more rational is not trivial and “here’s a proof of the inconsistency of your actions now pick a side and stop feeling the desire for the other side” is almost never sufficient. You have to be able to model the specific way that they’re stuck and meet them there)
tl;dr: We’re not VNM-rational because we don’t know how to be, not because it’s not something we’re trying to do.
How do you distinguish his preferences being irrationally inconsistent (he is worse off from entering and leaving relationships repeatedly) from him truly wanting to be in relationships periodically (like how it’s rational to alternate between sleeping and waking rather than always doing one or the other)?
If there’s a pill that can make him stop switching (but doesn’t change his preferences), one of two things will happen: either he’ll never be in a relationship (prevented from entering), or he’ll stay in his current relationship forever (prevented from leaving). I wouldn’t be surprised if he dislikes both of the outcomes and decides not to take the pill.
The pill could instead change his preferences so that he no longer wants to flip-flop, but this argument seems too general—why not just give him a pill that makes him like everything much more than he does now? If my behavior is irrational, I should be able to make myself better off simply by changing my behavior, without having to modify my preferences.
By talking to him. If it’s the latter, he’ll be able to say he prefers flip flopping like it’s just a matter of fact and if you probe into why he likes flip flopping, he’ll either have an answer that makes sense or he’ll talk about it in a way that shows that he is comfortable with not knowing. If it’s the former, he’ll probably say that he doesn’t like flip flopping, and if he doesn’t, it’ll leak signs of bullshit. It’ll come off like he’s trying to convince you of something because he is. And if you probe his answers for inconsistencies he’ll get hostile because he doesn’t want you to.
I’m not sure where you’re going with the “magic pill” hypotheticals, but I agree. The only thing I can think to add is that a lot of times the “winning behaviors” are largely mental and aren’t really available until you understand the situation better.
For example, if you break your foot and can’t get it x-rayed for a day, the right answer might be to just get some writing done—but if you try to force that behavior while you’re suffering, it’s not gonna go well. You have to actually be able to dismiss the pain signal before you have a mental space to write in.
I meant that if someone is behaving irrationally, forcing them to stop that behavior should make them better off. But it seems unlikely to me that forcing him to stay in his current relationship forever, or preventing him from ever entering a relationship (these are the two ways he can be stopped from flip-flopping) actually benefit him.
Forcing anyone to stay in their current relationship forever or forever preventing them from entering a relationship would be quite bad. In order to help him, he’d have to be doing worse than that.
The way to help him would be a bit trickier than that: let him have “good” relationships but not bad. Let him leave “bad” relationships but not good. And then control his mental behaviors so that he’s not allowed to spend time being miserable about his lack of options… (it’s hard to force rationality)
Controlling his mental behaviors would either be changing his preferences or giving him another option. For judging whether he is behaving irrationally, shouldn’t his preferences and set of choices be held fixed?