I think it’s pretty clear we should have a term in our social utility function that gives value to complexity (of the universe, of society, of the environment, of our minds). That makes me more than just a preference utilitarian. It’s an absolute objective value. It may even, with interpretation, be sufficient by itself.
There are specific things that I value that are complex, and in some cases I value them more the more complex they are, but I don’t think I value complexity as such. Complexity that doesn’t hit some target is just randomness, no?
It seems to me like if you define complexity in any formal way, you’ll end up tiling the universe with either random noise, fractals, or some other extremely uninteresting system with lots and lots of variables.
I always thought that our love of complexity is a side-effect of the godshatter, ie there’s no one thing that will interest us. Solve everything else, and the desire for complexity disappears. You might convince me otherwise by defining “complexity” more rigorously.
It seems to me like if you define complexity in any formal way, you’ll end up tiling the universe with either random noise, fractals, or some other extremely uninteresting system with lots and lots of variables.
Could complexity-advocates reply to this point specifically? Either to say why they don’t actually want this or to admit that they do. I’m confused.
Living systems do produce complex, high-entropy states, as a matter of fact. Yes, that leads to universal heat death faster if they keep on, but—so what?
Someone whose name escapes me has argued that this is why living systems exist—the universe tends towards maximum entropy, and we’re the most efficient way of getting there. Let’s see how much energy we can waste today!
What are you trying to say? Preference-satisfaction is exactly as absolute and objective a value as complexity; it’s just one that happens to explicitly depend on the contents of people’s minds.
Now I don’t know what you are trying to say. Saying that preferences are values is tautological—“preferences” and “values” are synonyms in this kind of discussion.
One of the things that currently frustrates me most about this site is the confusion that seems to surround the use of words like value, preference, happiness, and utility. Unfortunately, these words do not have settled, consistent meanings, even within literatures that utilize them extensively (economics is a great example of this; philosophy tends to be better, though still not perfect). Nor does it seem likely that we will be able to collectively settle on consistent usages across the community. (Indeed, some flexibility may even be useful.)
Given that, can we please stop insisting that others’ statements are wrong/nonsensical/tautological etc. simply on the basis that they aren’t using our own preferred definitions. If something seems not to make sense to you, consider extending some interpretative charity by (a) considering whether it might make sense given alternative definitions; and/or (b) asking for clarification, before engaging in potentially misguided criticisms.
EDIT: By way of example here, many people would claim that things can be valuable, independently of whether anyone has a preference for them. You may not think such a view is defensible, but it’s not obviously gibberish, and if you want to argue against it, you’ll need more than a definitional fiat.
Whoa! Hold your horses! I started out by saying: “I don’t know what you are trying to say.” Clarify definitions away—if that is the problem—which seems rather unlikely.
Read what I said: “preference-satisfaction is… a value”, not “preferences are values”. The point is that the extent to which people’s preferences are satisfied is just as objective a property of a situation as the amount of complexity present.
The point is that the extent to which people’s preferences are satisfied is just as objective a property of a situation as the amount of complexity present.
The preferences can be anything. If I claim that complexity should be one of the preferences, for me and for everyone, that’s an objective claim—“objective” in the sense “claiming an objective value valid for all observers, rather than a subjective value that they can choose arbitrarily”. It’s practically religious. It’s radically different from saying “people satisfy their preferences”.
“The extent to which people’s preferences are satisfied” is an objective property of a situation. But that has nothing to do with what I said; it’s using a different meaning of the word “objective”.
Trying for a sympathetic interpretation—I /think/ you must be talking about the preferences of a particular individual, or an average human—or something like that.
In general, preference-satisfaction is not specific—in the way that maximising complexity is (for some defined metric of complexity) - because the preferences could be any agent’s preferences—and different agents can have wildly different preferences.
Preference-satisfaction in this context is usually considered as an aggregate (usually a sum or an average) of the degree to which all individuals’ preferences are satisfied (for some defined metric of satisfaction).
I think it’s pretty clear we should have a term in our social utility function that gives value to complexity (of the universe, of society, of the environment, of our minds). That makes me more than just a preference utilitarian. It’s an absolute objective value. It may even, with interpretation, be sufficient by itself.
There are specific things that I value that are complex, and in some cases I value them more the more complex they are, but I don’t think I value complexity as such. Complexity that doesn’t hit some target is just randomness, no?
Can you explain that a little better?
It seems to me like if you define complexity in any formal way, you’ll end up tiling the universe with either random noise, fractals, or some other extremely uninteresting system with lots and lots of variables.
I always thought that our love of complexity is a side-effect of the godshatter, ie there’s no one thing that will interest us. Solve everything else, and the desire for complexity disappears. You might convince me otherwise by defining “complexity” more rigorously.
Could complexity-advocates reply to this point specifically? Either to say why they don’t actually want this or to admit that they do. I’m confused.
Living systems do produce complex, high-entropy states, as a matter of fact. Yes, that leads to universal heat death faster if they keep on, but—so what?
Someone whose name escapes me has argued that this is why living systems exist—the universe tends towards maximum entropy, and we’re the most efficient way of getting there. Let’s see how much energy we can waste today!
There’s a few of us. My pages on the topic:
http://originoflife.net/gods_utility_function/ http://originoflife.net/bright_light/
See also:
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Life/Signed_Articles/John_Whitfield
The main recent breakthrough of our understanding in this areas is down to Dewar—and the basic idea goes back at least to Lotka, from 1922.
What are you trying to say? Preference-satisfaction is exactly as absolute and objective a value as complexity; it’s just one that happens to explicitly depend on the contents of people’s minds.
Now I don’t know what you are trying to say. Saying that preferences are values is tautological—“preferences” and “values” are synonyms in this kind of discussion.
One of the things that currently frustrates me most about this site is the confusion that seems to surround the use of words like value, preference, happiness, and utility. Unfortunately, these words do not have settled, consistent meanings, even within literatures that utilize them extensively (economics is a great example of this; philosophy tends to be better, though still not perfect). Nor does it seem likely that we will be able to collectively settle on consistent usages across the community. (Indeed, some flexibility may even be useful.)
Given that, can we please stop insisting that others’ statements are wrong/nonsensical/tautological etc. simply on the basis that they aren’t using our own preferred definitions. If something seems not to make sense to you, consider extending some interpretative charity by (a) considering whether it might make sense given alternative definitions; and/or (b) asking for clarification, before engaging in potentially misguided criticisms.
EDIT: By way of example here, many people would claim that things can be valuable, independently of whether anyone has a preference for them. You may not think such a view is defensible, but it’s not obviously gibberish, and if you want to argue against it, you’ll need more than a definitional fiat.
Whoa! Hold your horses! I started out by saying: “I don’t know what you are trying to say.” Clarify definitions away—if that is the problem—which seems rather unlikely.
seemed more like an assertion than an attempt to seek clarification, but I apologize if I misinterpreted your intention.
The EDIT was supposed to be an attempt to clarify. Does the claim I made there make sense to you?
FWIW, to my way of thinking, we can talk about hypothetical preferences just about as easily as hypothetical values.
I’m afraid that I don’t understand the relevance of this to the discussion. Could you expand?
Read what I said: “preference-satisfaction is… a value”, not “preferences are values”. The point is that the extent to which people’s preferences are satisfied is just as objective a property of a situation as the amount of complexity present.
The preferences can be anything. If I claim that complexity should be one of the preferences, for me and for everyone, that’s an objective claim—“objective” in the sense “claiming an objective value valid for all observers, rather than a subjective value that they can choose arbitrarily”. It’s practically religious. It’s radically different from saying “people satisfy their preferences”.
“The extent to which people’s preferences are satisfied” is an objective property of a situation. But that has nothing to do with what I said; it’s using a different meaning of the word “objective”.
Trying for a sympathetic interpretation—I /think/ you must be talking about the preferences of a particular individual, or an average human—or something like that.
In general, preference-satisfaction is not specific—in the way that maximising complexity is (for some defined metric of complexity) - because the preferences could be any agent’s preferences—and different agents can have wildly different preferences.
Preference-satisfaction in this context is usually considered as an aggregate (usually a sum or an average) of the degree to which all individuals’ preferences are satisfied (for some defined metric of satisfaction).
The preferences of the people in the situation being evaluated.
That’s the theory, as I understand it:
http://originoflife.net/gods_utility_function/