I’d say it’s an error to give weight to any particular highly-improbable scenario without any evidence to distinguish it from the other highly-improbable scenarios. Here’s why.
There is a nonzero possibility that some entity will acquire (or already have) godlike powers later today (as per your “I am a god” definition), and decide to use them to increase utility exponentially in response to a number derived somehow from an arbitrary combination of actions by any arbitrary combination of people in the past and the ever-moving present (and let’s remember that the requirement could equally well be “condition y is met” or “condition y is not met”). I can’t figure out a way to make the number of permutations actually infinite, but considering the negative as well as the positive options makes them cancel out anyway—we have no reason to believe that my posting this comment is more or less likely to trigger a utility increase than my (hypothetically) not posting this comment. The theoretically-possible outcome (huge increase in utility) does not depend on our actions in any predictable way, so there is no reason to modify our actions on this basis.
This leads to the following rational ‘conclusion’ (specifically considering this issue only) about taking any particular action, on a scale from −1 (definitely don’t do) through 0 (indifferent) to 1 (definitely do):
±1/n, n->infinity
(Edit: Actually, this should just be 0. I should lay off the maths when I’m tired.)
(where n is the number of different possible sequences of actions which could possibly trigger the utility increase, and n therefore is unthinkably huge and continues to grow exponentially with each passing second)
Alternatively:
There is also a nonzero possibility etc etc decreaseutility etc. etc. Every scenario which could lead to massive increase in utility could instead lead to massive decrease in utility, and we have no way to determine which is less likely.
Tim, you want “a good reason not to be jerked around by unlikely gods in general”. Personally I much prefer my first answer (and I suspect you will too), but my alternative answer offers a much more concise rebuttal for any claim of infinite utility increase from an unlikely god:
“Your unlikely god will grant arbitrarily large increase in utility if I take the specified action? Well, my unlikely god will wreak arbitrarily large decrease in utility if I take the specified action. Give me evidence that makes your god and its claim of positive utility more likely than my god and its claim of negative utility, and we can talk—until then the probabilities exactly balance out, so for now I’ll just carry on regardless.
I’d say it’s an error to give weight to any particular highly-improbable scenario without any evidence to distinguish it from the other highly-improbable scenarios. Here’s why.
There is a nonzero possibility that some entity will acquire (or already have) godlike powers later today (as per your “I am a god” definition), and decide to use them to increase utility exponentially in response to a number derived somehow from an arbitrary combination of actions by any arbitrary combination of people in the past and the ever-moving present (and let’s remember that the requirement could equally well be “condition y is met” or “condition y is not met”). I can’t figure out a way to make the number of permutations actually infinite, but considering the negative as well as the positive options makes them cancel out anyway—we have no reason to believe that my posting this comment is more or less likely to trigger a utility increase than my (hypothetically) not posting this comment. The theoretically-possible outcome (huge increase in utility) does not depend on our actions in any predictable way, so there is no reason to modify our actions on this basis.
This leads to the following rational ‘conclusion’ (specifically considering this issue only) about taking any particular action, on a scale from −1 (definitely don’t do) through 0 (indifferent) to 1 (definitely do):
±1/n, n->infinity
(Edit: Actually, this should just be 0. I should lay off the maths when I’m tired.)
(where n is the number of different possible sequences of actions which could possibly trigger the utility increase, and n therefore is unthinkably huge and continues to grow exponentially with each passing second)
Alternatively:
There is also a nonzero possibility etc etc decrease utility etc. etc. Every scenario which could lead to massive increase in utility could instead lead to massive decrease in utility, and we have no way to determine which is less likely.
Tim, you want “a good reason not to be jerked around by unlikely gods in general”. Personally I much prefer my first answer (and I suspect you will too), but my alternative answer offers a much more concise rebuttal for any claim of infinite utility increase from an unlikely god:
“Your unlikely god will grant arbitrarily large increase in utility if I take the specified action? Well, my unlikely god will wreak arbitrarily large decrease in utility if I take the specified action. Give me evidence that makes your god and its claim of positive utility more likely than my god and its claim of negative utility, and we can talk—until then the probabilities exactly balance out, so for now I’ll just carry on regardless.