Why assume that utility is a function of individual states in this model, rather than processes? Can’t a utilitarian deny that instantaneous states, considered apart from context, have any utility?
What is “processes” ? What’s about not switching state data in above example? (You keep re-calculating same state from previous state; if it’s calculation of the next state that is the process then the process is all right)
Also, at that point you aren’t rescuing utilitarianism, you’re going to some sort of virtue ethics where particular changes are virtuous on their own.
Bottom line is, if you don’t define what is processes then you just plug in something undefined through which our intuitions can pour in and make it look all right even if the concept is still fundamentally flawed.
We want to overwrite the old state with the new state. But we would like to preserve old state in a backup if we had unlimited memory. It thus follows that there is a tradeoff decision between worth of old state, worth of new state, and cost of backup. You can proclaim that instantaneous states considered apart from context don’t have any utility. Okay you have what ever context you want, now what are the utilities of the states and the backup, so that we can decide when to do the backup? How often to do the backup? Decide on optimal clock rate? etc.
A process, at a minimum, takes some time (dt > 0). Calculating the next state from previous state would be a process. If you make backups, you could also make additional calculation processes working from those backed-up states. Does that count as “creating more people”? That’s a disputed philosophy of mind question on which reasonable utilitarians might differ, just like anyone else. But if they do say that it creates more people, then we just have yet another weird population ethics question. No more and no less a problem for utilitarianism than the standard population ethics questions, as far as I can see. Nothing follows about each individual’s life having to have ever-increasing utility lest putting that person in stasis be considered better.
Why assume that utility is a function of individual states in this model, rather than processes? Can’t a utilitarian deny that instantaneous states, considered apart from context, have any utility?
What is “processes” ? What’s about not switching state data in above example? (You keep re-calculating same state from previous state; if it’s calculation of the next state that is the process then the process is all right)
Also, at that point you aren’t rescuing utilitarianism, you’re going to some sort of virtue ethics where particular changes are virtuous on their own.
Bottom line is, if you don’t define what is processes then you just plug in something undefined through which our intuitions can pour in and make it look all right even if the concept is still fundamentally flawed.
We want to overwrite the old state with the new state. But we would like to preserve old state in a backup if we had unlimited memory. It thus follows that there is a tradeoff decision between worth of old state, worth of new state, and cost of backup. You can proclaim that instantaneous states considered apart from context don’t have any utility. Okay you have what ever context you want, now what are the utilities of the states and the backup, so that we can decide when to do the backup? How often to do the backup? Decide on optimal clock rate? etc.
A process, at a minimum, takes some time (dt > 0). Calculating the next state from previous state would be a process. If you make backups, you could also make additional calculation processes working from those backed-up states. Does that count as “creating more people”? That’s a disputed philosophy of mind question on which reasonable utilitarians might differ, just like anyone else. But if they do say that it creates more people, then we just have yet another weird population ethics question. No more and no less a problem for utilitarianism than the standard population ethics questions, as far as I can see. Nothing follows about each individual’s life having to have ever-increasing utility lest putting that person in stasis be considered better.