For my own part, I share your #1 and #2, don’t share your #3 (that is, I’d rather Omega not reproduce the bad stuff, but if they’re going to do so, it makes no real difference to me whether they reproduce the good stuff as well)
One thing that makes me inclined towards #3 is the possibility that the multiverse is constantly reproducing my life over and over again, good and bad. I do not think that I would consider it devastatingly bad news if it turns out that the Many-Worlds interpretation is correct.
If I really believed that repeated bad experiences could not ever be compensated for by repeated good ones, I would consider the Many Worlds Interpretation to be the worst news ever, since there were tons of me out in the multiverse having a mix of good and bad experiences, but the good ones “don’t count” because they already happened somewhere else. But I don’t consider it bad news. I don’t think that if there was a machine that could stop the multiverse from splitting that I would pay to have it built.
One way to explain my preferences in this regard would be that I believe that repeated “good stuff” can compensate for repeated “bad stuff,” but that it can’t compensate for losing brand new “good stuff” or experiencing brand new “bad stuff.”
However, I am not certain about this. There may be some other explanation for my preferences. Another possibility that I think is likely is that I think that repeated “good stuff” only loses its value for copies that have a strong causal connection to the current me. Other mes who exist somewhere out in the multiverse have no connection to this version of me whatsoever, so my positive experiences don’t detract from their identical ones. But copies that I pay to have created (or to not be) are connected to me in such a fashion, so I (and they) do feel that their repeated experiences are less valuable.
This second explanation seems a strong contender as well, since I already have other moral intuitions in regards to causal connection (for instance, if there was a Matrioshka brain full of quintillions environmentalists in a part of the multiverse so far off they will never interact with us, I would not consider their preferences to be relevant when forming environmental policy, but I would consider the preferences of environmentalists here on Earth right now to be relevant). This relates to that “separability” concept we discussed a while ago.
Or maybe both of these explanations are true. I’m not sure.
Also, I’m curious, why are you indifferent in case 4? I think I might not have explained it clearly. What I was going for was that Omega say “I’m making a copy of you in a bad time of your life. I can either not do it at all, or extend the copy’s lifespan so that it is now a copy of a portion of your life that had both good and bad moments. Both options cost $10.” I am saying that I think I might be indifferent about what I spend $10 on in that case.
Yup, that makes sense, but doesn’t seem to describe my own experience.
For my own part, I think the parts of my psyche that judge the kinds of negative scenarios we’re talking about use a different kind of evaluation than the parts that judge the kinds of positive scenarios we’re talking about.
I seem to treat the “bad stuff” as bad for its own sake… avoiding torture feels worth doing, period end of sentence. But the “good stuff” feels more contingent, more instrumental, feels more like it’s worth doing only because it leads to… something. This is consistent with my experience of these sorts of thought experiments more generally… it’s easier for me to imagine “pure” negative value (e.g., torture, suffering, etc in isolation.) than “pure” positive value (e.g., joy, love, happiness, satisfaction in isolation). It’s hard for me to imagine some concrete thing that I would actually trade for a year of torture, for example, though in principle it seems like some such thing ought to exist.
And it makes some sense that there would be a connection between how instrumental something feels, and how I think about the prospect of repeating it. If torture feels bad for its own sake, then when I contemplate repetitions of the same torture, it makes sense that I would “add up the badness” in my head… and if good stuff doesn’t feel good for its own sake, it makes sense that I wouldn’t “add up the goodness” in my head in the same way.
WRT #4, what I’m saying is that copying the good moments feels essentially valueless to me, while copying the bad moments has negative value. So I’m being offered a choice between “bad thing + valueless thing” and “bad thing”, and I don’t seem to care. (That said, I’d probably choose the former, cuz hey, I might be wrong.)
I think I understand your viewpoint. I do have an additional question though, which is what you think about how to to evaluate moments that have a combination of good and bad.
For instance, let’s suppose you have the best day ever, except that you had a mild pain in your leg for the most of the day. All the awesome stuff you did during the day more than made up for that mild pain though.
Now let’s suppose you are offered the prospect of having a copy of you repeat that day exactly. We both agree that doing this would add no additional value, the question is whether it would be valueless, or add disvalue?
There are two possible ways I see to evaluate this:
You could add up all the events of the day and decide they contain more good than bad, therefore this was a “good” day. “Good” things have no value when repeated, so you would assign zero value to having a copy relive this day. You would not pay to have it happen, but you also wouldn’t exert a great effort to stop it.
You could assign value to the events first before adding them up, assigning zero value to all the good things and a slight negative value to the pain in your leg. Therefore you would assign negative value to having a copy relive this day and would pay to stop it from happening.
To me (1) seems to be an intuitively better way of evaluating the prospect of a copy reliving the day than (2). It also lines up with my intuition that it wouldn’t be bad news if MWI was true. But I wonder if you would think differently?
It’s worth noting that the question of what is a better way of evaluating such prospects is distinct from the question of how I in fact evaluate them. I am not claiming that having multiple incomensurable metrics for evaluating the value of lived experience is a good design, merely that it seems to be the way my brain works.
Given the way my brain works, I suspect repeating a typical day as you posit would add disvalue, for reasons similar to #2.
Would it be better if I instead evaluated it as per #1? Yeah, probably.
Still better would be if I had a metric for evaluating events such that #1 and #2 converged on the same answer.
It’s worth noting that the question of what is a better way of evaluating such prospects is distinct from the question of how I in fact evaluate them.
Good point. What I meant was closer to “which method of evaluation does the best job of capturing how you intuitively assign value” rather than which way is better in some sort of objective sense. For me #1 seems to describe how I assign value and disvalue to repeating copies better than #2 does, but I’m far from certain.
So I think that from my point of view Omega offering to extend the length of a repeated event so it contains a more even mixture of good and bad is the same as Omega offering to not repeat a bad event and repeat a good event instead. Both options contain zero value, I would rather Omega leave me alone and let me go do new things. But they’re better than him repeating a bad event.
One thing that makes me inclined towards #3 is the possibility that the multiverse is constantly reproducing my life over and over again, good and bad. I do not think that I would consider it devastatingly bad news if it turns out that the Many-Worlds interpretation is correct.
If I really believed that repeated bad experiences could not ever be compensated for by repeated good ones, I would consider the Many Worlds Interpretation to be the worst news ever, since there were tons of me out in the multiverse having a mix of good and bad experiences, but the good ones “don’t count” because they already happened somewhere else. But I don’t consider it bad news. I don’t think that if there was a machine that could stop the multiverse from splitting that I would pay to have it built.
One way to explain my preferences in this regard would be that I believe that repeated “good stuff” can compensate for repeated “bad stuff,” but that it can’t compensate for losing brand new “good stuff” or experiencing brand new “bad stuff.”
However, I am not certain about this. There may be some other explanation for my preferences. Another possibility that I think is likely is that I think that repeated “good stuff” only loses its value for copies that have a strong causal connection to the current me. Other mes who exist somewhere out in the multiverse have no connection to this version of me whatsoever, so my positive experiences don’t detract from their identical ones. But copies that I pay to have created (or to not be) are connected to me in such a fashion, so I (and they) do feel that their repeated experiences are less valuable.
This second explanation seems a strong contender as well, since I already have other moral intuitions in regards to causal connection (for instance, if there was a Matrioshka brain full of quintillions environmentalists in a part of the multiverse so far off they will never interact with us, I would not consider their preferences to be relevant when forming environmental policy, but I would consider the preferences of environmentalists here on Earth right now to be relevant). This relates to that “separability” concept we discussed a while ago.
Or maybe both of these explanations are true. I’m not sure.
Also, I’m curious, why are you indifferent in case 4? I think I might not have explained it clearly. What I was going for was that Omega say “I’m making a copy of you in a bad time of your life. I can either not do it at all, or extend the copy’s lifespan so that it is now a copy of a portion of your life that had both good and bad moments. Both options cost $10.” I am saying that I think I might be indifferent about what I spend $10 on in that case.
Yup, that makes sense, but doesn’t seem to describe my own experience.
For my own part, I think the parts of my psyche that judge the kinds of negative scenarios we’re talking about use a different kind of evaluation than the parts that judge the kinds of positive scenarios we’re talking about.
I seem to treat the “bad stuff” as bad for its own sake… avoiding torture feels worth doing, period end of sentence. But the “good stuff” feels more contingent, more instrumental, feels more like it’s worth doing only because it leads to… something. This is consistent with my experience of these sorts of thought experiments more generally… it’s easier for me to imagine “pure” negative value (e.g., torture, suffering, etc in isolation.) than “pure” positive value (e.g., joy, love, happiness, satisfaction in isolation). It’s hard for me to imagine some concrete thing that I would actually trade for a year of torture, for example, though in principle it seems like some such thing ought to exist.
And it makes some sense that there would be a connection between how instrumental something feels, and how I think about the prospect of repeating it. If torture feels bad for its own sake, then when I contemplate repetitions of the same torture, it makes sense that I would “add up the badness” in my head… and if good stuff doesn’t feel good for its own sake, it makes sense that I wouldn’t “add up the goodness” in my head in the same way.
WRT #4, what I’m saying is that copying the good moments feels essentially valueless to me, while copying the bad moments has negative value. So I’m being offered a choice between “bad thing + valueless thing” and “bad thing”, and I don’t seem to care. (That said, I’d probably choose the former, cuz hey, I might be wrong.)
I think I understand your viewpoint. I do have an additional question though, which is what you think about how to to evaluate moments that have a combination of good and bad.
For instance, let’s suppose you have the best day ever, except that you had a mild pain in your leg for the most of the day. All the awesome stuff you did during the day more than made up for that mild pain though.
Now let’s suppose you are offered the prospect of having a copy of you repeat that day exactly. We both agree that doing this would add no additional value, the question is whether it would be valueless, or add disvalue?
There are two possible ways I see to evaluate this:
You could add up all the events of the day and decide they contain more good than bad, therefore this was a “good” day. “Good” things have no value when repeated, so you would assign zero value to having a copy relive this day. You would not pay to have it happen, but you also wouldn’t exert a great effort to stop it.
You could assign value to the events first before adding them up, assigning zero value to all the good things and a slight negative value to the pain in your leg. Therefore you would assign negative value to having a copy relive this day and would pay to stop it from happening.
To me (1) seems to be an intuitively better way of evaluating the prospect of a copy reliving the day than (2). It also lines up with my intuition that it wouldn’t be bad news if MWI was true. But I wonder if you would think differently?
It’s worth noting that the question of what is a better way of evaluating such prospects is distinct from the question of how I in fact evaluate them. I am not claiming that having multiple incomensurable metrics for evaluating the value of lived experience is a good design, merely that it seems to be the way my brain works.
Given the way my brain works, I suspect repeating a typical day as you posit would add disvalue, for reasons similar to #2.
Would it be better if I instead evaluated it as per #1? Yeah, probably.
Still better would be if I had a metric for evaluating events such that #1 and #2 converged on the same answer.
Good point. What I meant was closer to “which method of evaluation does the best job of capturing how you intuitively assign value” rather than which way is better in some sort of objective sense. For me #1 seems to describe how I assign value and disvalue to repeating copies better than #2 does, but I’m far from certain.
So I think that from my point of view Omega offering to extend the length of a repeated event so it contains a more even mixture of good and bad is the same as Omega offering to not repeat a bad event and repeat a good event instead. Both options contain zero value, I would rather Omega leave me alone and let me go do new things. But they’re better than him repeating a bad event.