How can a numerical measure of a subjective state of consciousness be valuable if nobody experiences the total numerical measure?
The mere addition paradox also manifests for a single person. Imagine the state you are in. Now imagine if it can be (subjectively) improved by some means (e.g. fame, company, drugs, …). Keep going. Odds are, you would not find a maximum, not even a local one. After a while, you might notice that, despite incremental improvements, the state you are in is actually inferior to the original, if you compare them directly. Mathematically, one might model this as the improvement drive being non-conservative and so no scalar map from states to scalar utility exists. Whether it is worth pushing this analogy any further, I am not sure.
The mere addition paradox also manifests for a single person. Imagine the state you are in. Now imagine if it can be (subjectively) improved by some means (e.g. fame, company, drugs, …). Keep going. Odds are, you would not find a maximum, not even a local one.
Hill climbing always finds a local maximum, but that might well look very disappointing, wasteful of effort, and downright stupid when compared to some smarter means of spending the effort on finding a way to live a better life.
The mere addition paradox also manifests for a single person. Imagine the state you are in. Now imagine if it can be (subjectively) improved by some means (e.g. fame, company, drugs, …). Keep going. Odds are, you would not find a maximum, not even a local one. After a while, you might notice that, despite incremental improvements, the state you are in is actually inferior to the original, if you compare them directly. Mathematically, one might model this as the improvement drive being non-conservative and so no scalar map from states to scalar utility exists. Whether it is worth pushing this analogy any further, I am not sure.
Hill climbing always finds a local maximum, but that might well look very disappointing, wasteful of effort, and downright stupid when compared to some smarter means of spending the effort on finding a way to live a better life.