I’m afraid I’m still utterly confused by your usage. It seems to me that you’re trying to draw two separate distinctions when you contrast happiness and utility. One is a distinction between brain states and other things we might choose to value; the other is a distinction between an instantaneous measure and a measure aggregated in some way over time.
Does this seem right to you, or am I completely missing the point? (If it does seem right, do you see how trying to do both of these with a single shift in terminology might not be the best way of proceeding? In particular, it manages to leave us with no words for the aggregate-of-value-over-time; or for the instantaneous-experience-of-particular-brain-states.)
I am also somewhat confused by your viewing the brain states (Happiness) as functions of utility. We can clearly value more than just states of our brain, so it seems far more natural to me to view value as a function of brain states + other stuff, rather than the other way around.
I’m afraid I’m still utterly confused by your usage. It seems to me that you’re trying to draw two separate distinctions when you contrast happiness and utility. One is a distinction between brain states and other things we might choose to value; the other is a distinction between an instantaneous measure and a measure aggregated in some way over time.
Yes. I don’t think introducing these distinctions one at a time would give you any additional useful concepts. The integral of utility over time serves as the aggregate of value over time. It only fails to do so when we talk about happiness because happiness is more sensitive to changes in utility than to utility.
Happiness does give you an instantaneous measure; it just depends on the history. When I talk about maximizing happiness, I mean maximizing the integral of happiness over time. This works out to be the same as maximizing the increase in utility over time, for reasonable definitions of happiness; see my comment above in response to EY.
We can clearly value more than just states of our brain
I think the distinction is
‘maximize utility’ = non-hedonic rationalism
‘maximize happiness’ = hedonic rationalism
I understand that there’s a lot of sympathy for non-hedonic rationalism. But, in the long run, it probably relies on irrational, Nietzschian value-creation.
Hedonic rationalism is in danger of being circular once we can re-write our happiness functions. But this is probably completely isomorphic to the symbol-grounding problem, so we have to address this problem anyway.
I don’t think introducing these distinctions one at a time would give you any additional useful concepts.
Then there are a lot of economists (and psychologists) who disagree with you, and routinely use these concepts you don’t think are useful for apparently useful purposes.
I was a little careless; and you are taking my statement out of context and overgeneralizing it. These two distinctions are both needed to find the answer I am proposing. They can be used successfully in other context, or probably within the same context to address different questions.
I’m afraid I’m still utterly confused by your usage. It seems to me that you’re trying to draw two separate distinctions when you contrast happiness and utility. One is a distinction between brain states and other things we might choose to value; the other is a distinction between an instantaneous measure and a measure aggregated in some way over time.
Does this seem right to you, or am I completely missing the point? (If it does seem right, do you see how trying to do both of these with a single shift in terminology might not be the best way of proceeding? In particular, it manages to leave us with no words for the aggregate-of-value-over-time; or for the instantaneous-experience-of-particular-brain-states.)
I am also somewhat confused by your viewing the brain states (Happiness) as functions of utility. We can clearly value more than just states of our brain, so it seems far more natural to me to view value as a function of brain states + other stuff, rather than the other way around.
Yes. I don’t think introducing these distinctions one at a time would give you any additional useful concepts. The integral of utility over time serves as the aggregate of value over time. It only fails to do so when we talk about happiness because happiness is more sensitive to changes in utility than to utility.
Happiness does give you an instantaneous measure; it just depends on the history. When I talk about maximizing happiness, I mean maximizing the integral of happiness over time. This works out to be the same as maximizing the increase in utility over time, for reasonable definitions of happiness; see my comment above in response to EY.
I think the distinction is
‘maximize utility’ = non-hedonic rationalism
‘maximize happiness’ = hedonic rationalism
I understand that there’s a lot of sympathy for non-hedonic rationalism. But, in the long run, it probably relies on irrational, Nietzschian value-creation.
Hedonic rationalism is in danger of being circular once we can re-write our happiness functions. But this is probably completely isomorphic to the symbol-grounding problem, so we have to address this problem anyway.
Then there are a lot of economists (and psychologists) who disagree with you, and routinely use these concepts you don’t think are useful for apparently useful purposes.
I was a little careless; and you are taking my statement out of context and overgeneralizing it. These two distinctions are both needed to find the answer I am proposing. They can be used successfully in other context, or probably within the same context to address different questions.