What matters is whether the agent has some nonzero credence that they are being offered such a game. I for one am such an agent, and you would be too if you bought into the “0 is not a probability” thing, or if you bought into solomonoff induction or something like that.
In fact I don’t buy into those things. One has to distinguish probability at the object level from probability at the metalevel. At the metalevel it does not exist, only true and false exist, 0 and 1. So when I propose a set of axioms whereby measures of probability and utility are constructed, the probability exists within that framework. The question of whether the framework is a good one matters, but it cannot be discussed in terms of the probability that it is right. I have set out the construction, which I think improves on Savage’s, but people can study it themselves and agree or not. It rules out the Pasadena game. To ask what the probability is of being faced with the Pasadena game is outside the scope of my axioms, Savage’s, and every set of axioms that imply bounded utility. Everyone excludes the Pasadena game.
No, actually they don’t. I’ve just come across a few more papers dealing with Pasadena, Altadena, and St. Petersburg games, beginning with Terrence Fine’s “Evaluating the Pasadena, Altadena, and St Petersburg Gambles”, and tracing back the references from there. From a brief flick through, all of these papers are attempting what seems to me to be a futile activity: assigning utilities to these pathological games. Always, something has to be given up, and here, what is given up is any systematic way of assigning these games utilities; nevertheless they go ahead and do so, even while noticing the non-uniqueness of the assignments.
So there is the situation. Savage’s axioms, and all systems that begin with a total preference relation on arbitrary games, require utility to be bounded in order to exclude not only these games, but also infinite games that converge perfectly well to intuitively natural limits. I start from finite games and then extend to well-behaved limits. Others try to assign utility to pathological games, but fail to do so uniquely.
I’m happy to end the conversation here, because at this point there is probably little for us to say that would not be repetition of what has already been said.
In fact I don’t buy into those things. One has to distinguish probability at the object level from probability at the metalevel. At the metalevel it does not exist, only true and false exist, 0 and 1. So when I propose a set of axioms whereby measures of probability and utility are constructed, the probability exists within that framework. The question of whether the framework is a good one matters, but it cannot be discussed in terms of the probability that it is right. I have set out the construction, which I think improves on Savage’s, but people can study it themselves and agree or not. It rules out the Pasadena game. To ask what the probability is of being faced with the Pasadena game is outside the scope of my axioms, Savage’s, and every set of axioms that imply bounded utility. Everyone excludes the Pasadena game.
No, actually they don’t. I’ve just come across a few more papers dealing with Pasadena, Altadena, and St. Petersburg games, beginning with Terrence Fine’s “Evaluating the Pasadena, Altadena, and St Petersburg Gambles”, and tracing back the references from there. From a brief flick through, all of these papers are attempting what seems to me to be a futile activity: assigning utilities to these pathological games. Always, something has to be given up, and here, what is given up is any systematic way of assigning these games utilities; nevertheless they go ahead and do so, even while noticing the non-uniqueness of the assignments.
So there is the situation. Savage’s axioms, and all systems that begin with a total preference relation on arbitrary games, require utility to be bounded in order to exclude not only these games, but also infinite games that converge perfectly well to intuitively natural limits. I start from finite games and then extend to well-behaved limits. Others try to assign utility to pathological games, but fail to do so uniquely.
I’m happy to end the conversation here, because at this point there is probably little for us to say that would not be repetition of what has already been said.
Yeah, it seems like we are talking past each other. Thanks for engaging with me anyway.