My default is to assume that B utility cannot be produced in a different world UNLESS it is of utility in B’s world to produce the utility in another world. One method by which this is possible is trade between the two worlds (which was the source of my initial response).
Your assumption seems to be that B utility will always have value in a different world.
My default assumption is explicitly overridden for the case where I feel good (have utility in the world where I am present) when I care about the world where I am not present.
Your (assumed) blanket assumption has the counterexample that while I feel good when someone has sex with me in the world where I am present (alive), I do not feel good (I feel nothing—and am currently repulsed by the thought = NEGATIVE utility) when someone has sex with me in the world where I am dead (not present).
ACK. Wait a minute. I’m clearly confusing the action that produced B utility with B utility itself. Your problem formulation did explicitly include your assumption (which thereby makes it a premise).
OK. I think I now accept your argument so far. I have a vague feeling that you’ve carried the argument to places where the premise/assumption isn’t valid but that’s obviously the subject for another post.
(Interesting karma question. I’ve made a mistake. How interesting is that mistake to the community? In this case, I think that it was a non-obvious mistake (certainly for me without working it through ;-) that others have a reasonable probability of making on an interesting subject so it should be of interest. We’ll see whether the karma results validate my understanding.)
(Just to be sure, I expect this is exactly the point you’ve changed your mind about, so there is no need for me to argue.)
My default is to assume that B utility cannot be produced in a different world UNLESS it is of utility in B’s world to produce the utility in another world.
Does not compute. Utility can’t be “in given world” or “useful” or “useful from a given world”. Utility is a measure of stuff, not stuff itself. Measure has no location.
Your assumption seems to be that B utility will always have value in a different world.
Not if we interpret “utility” as meaning “valuable stuff”. It’s not generally correct that the same stuff is equally valuable in all possible worlds. If in worlds of both agents A and B we can produce stuff X and Y, it might well be that producing X is world A has more B-utility than producing Y in world A, but producing X in world B has less B-utility than producing Y in world B. At the same time, given amount of B-utility is equally valuable, no matter where the stuff measured so got produced.
We seem to have differing assumptions:
My default is to assume that B utility cannot be produced in a different world UNLESS it is of utility in B’s world to produce the utility in another world. One method by which this is possible is trade between the two worlds (which was the source of my initial response).
Your assumption seems to be that B utility will always have value in a different world.
My default assumption is explicitly overridden for the case where I feel good (have utility in the world where I am present) when I care about the world where I am not present.
Your (assumed) blanket assumption has the counterexample that while I feel good when someone has sex with me in the world where I am present (alive), I do not feel good (I feel nothing—and am currently repulsed by the thought = NEGATIVE utility) when someone has sex with me in the world where I am dead (not present).
ACK. Wait a minute. I’m clearly confusing the action that produced B utility with B utility itself. Your problem formulation did explicitly include your assumption (which thereby makes it a premise).
OK. I think I now accept your argument so far. I have a vague feeling that you’ve carried the argument to places where the premise/assumption isn’t valid but that’s obviously the subject for another post.
(Interesting karma question. I’ve made a mistake. How interesting is that mistake to the community? In this case, I think that it was a non-obvious mistake (certainly for me without working it through ;-) that others have a reasonable probability of making on an interesting subject so it should be of interest. We’ll see whether the karma results validate my understanding.)
(Just to be sure, I expect this is exactly the point you’ve changed your mind about, so there is no need for me to argue.)
Does not compute. Utility can’t be “in given world” or “useful” or “useful from a given world”. Utility is a measure of stuff, not stuff itself. Measure has no location.
Not if we interpret “utility” as meaning “valuable stuff”. It’s not generally correct that the same stuff is equally valuable in all possible worlds. If in worlds of both agents A and B we can produce stuff X and Y, it might well be that producing X is world A has more B-utility than producing Y in world A, but producing X in world B has less B-utility than producing Y in world B. At the same time, given amount of B-utility is equally valuable, no matter where the stuff measured so got produced.
Yes. I agree fully with the above post.
But can certainly be location dependent. Measure doesn’t have to be translation invariant. Hyperbolic discounting, for instance.