Surreal numbers are a more natural fit—as argued by Conway. Otherwise, it is less convenient to model preferences where arbitrarily low probabilities of B are worth more than certainty of A, while A still has some value.
I am criticising utility function maximization by assigning dollar values, which, by definition, involves real numbers. (well, … ok, in reality you wouldn’t bother to use irrational numbers)
What else did you have in mind? Remember, when you answer, that you had better keep the expected utility theorem in mind.
Using dollar values instead of utilons is indeed a bad idea. But regardless of that, we don’t need the numbers, we only need to guess which choice gives the highest number with whatever accuracy we can achieve given the resources at our disposal.
Why does everybody think that utilitarianism necessarily means consciously crunching real numbers?
Surreal numbers are a more natural fit—as argued by Conway. Otherwise, it is less convenient to model preferences where arbitrarily low probabilities of B are worth more than certainty of A, while A still has some value.
I am criticising utility function maximization by assigning dollar values, which, by definition, involves real numbers. (well, … ok, in reality you wouldn’t bother to use irrational numbers)
What else did you have in mind? Remember, when you answer, that you had better keep the expected utility theorem in mind.
Using dollar values instead of utilons is indeed a bad idea. But regardless of that, we don’t need the numbers, we only need to guess which choice gives the highest number with whatever accuracy we can achieve given the resources at our disposal.