I was, do you think I should make a note of that somewhere in the OP?
That might be a good idea.
One avenue of attack would be the concept of a “life worth living,”
That tells you what zero utility is, but it doesn’t give you scale.
for a paperclipper one where its existence resulted in more paperclips than not. … I can tell that a paperclipper whose existence has resulted in the destruction of a thousand paperclips has a lower E-utility than a human who lives a life very much worth living. But I have trouble seeing how to determine how much E-utility a paperclipper who has made a positive number of paperclips has compared to that person.
It sounds like you’re equating E-utility with VNM utility for paperclippers. It seems more intuitive to me to say that paperclippers don’t have E-utilities, because it isn’t their experiences that they care about.
It sounds like you’re equating E-utility with VNM utility for paperclippers. It seems more intuitive to me to say that paperclippers don’t have E-utilities, because it isn’t their experiences that they care about.
That’s probably right. That also bring up what I consider an issue in describing the utility of humans. Right now we are basically dividing the VNM of humans into E-utility and what might be termed “moral utility” or “M-utility.” I’m wondering if there is anything else. That is, I wonder if human beings have any desires that are not either desires to have certain experiences, or desires to do something they believe is morally right. Maybe you could call it “Nonpersonal nonmoral utility,” or “NN utility for short.”
I wracked my brain and I can’t think of any desires I have that do not fit the categories of M or E utility. But maybe I’m not just thinking hard enough. Paperclippers are obviously nothing but NN utility, but I wonder if it’s present in humans at all.
Aesthetics?
ETA: I seem to be able to coherently desire the existence of artwork that I will never see and the completion of processes I will not interact with.
Presumably other people will see and enjoy that artwork, so aesthetics in that case might be a form of morality (you care about other people enjoying art, even if you never see that art yourself).
On the other hand, if you desire the existence of an aesthetically beautiful* natural rock formation, even if it was on a lifeless planet that no one would ever visit, that might count as NN utility.
*Technically the rock formation wouldn’t be beautiful since something’s beauty is a property of the mind beholding it, not a property of the object. But then you could just steel man that statement to say you desire the existence of a rock formation that would be found beautiful by a mind beholding it, even if no mind ever beholds it.
Actually, my aesthetics seem to be based as much on very powerful and possibly baseless intuitions of “completeness” as they do about beauty.
Omega offers to create a dead universe containing a printout of all possible chess games, and a printout of all possible chess games minus n randomly selected ones; my absurdly strong preference for the former is unaffected by his stipulation that no agent will ever interact with said universe and that I myself will immediately forget the conversation. And I don’t even like chess.
What’s the difference between M-utility and NN-utility? Does it have to do with the psychology of why you have the preference? What if there’s an alien with radically different psychology from us, and they developed morality-like preferences to help them cooperate, but they don’t think about them the way we think about morality? Would they have M-utility? Also, the separation between E-utility and M/NN-utility will get fuzzy if we can make uploads.
What’s the difference between M-utility and NN-utility? Does it have to do with the psychology of why you have the preference?
It’s hard to explicitly define the difference. I feel like preferring that other people have positive utility, and preferring that human beings exist instead of paperclippers, is a moral preference, whereas preferring that paperclips exist is an NN preference. So maybe M-utility involves my nonpersonal preferences that are about other people in some way, while NN preferences are nonpersonal preferences about things other than people.
That might be a good idea.
That tells you what zero utility is, but it doesn’t give you scale.
It sounds like you’re equating E-utility with VNM utility for paperclippers. It seems more intuitive to me to say that paperclippers don’t have E-utilities, because it isn’t their experiences that they care about.
I added a footnote.
That’s probably right. That also bring up what I consider an issue in describing the utility of humans. Right now we are basically dividing the VNM of humans into E-utility and what might be termed “moral utility” or “M-utility.” I’m wondering if there is anything else. That is, I wonder if human beings have any desires that are not either desires to have certain experiences, or desires to do something they believe is morally right. Maybe you could call it “Nonpersonal nonmoral utility,” or “NN utility for short.”
I wracked my brain and I can’t think of any desires I have that do not fit the categories of M or E utility. But maybe I’m not just thinking hard enough. Paperclippers are obviously nothing but NN utility, but I wonder if it’s present in humans at all.
Aesthetics? ETA: I seem to be able to coherently desire the existence of artwork that I will never see and the completion of processes I will not interact with.
Presumably other people will see and enjoy that artwork, so aesthetics in that case might be a form of morality (you care about other people enjoying art, even if you never see that art yourself).
On the other hand, if you desire the existence of an aesthetically beautiful* natural rock formation, even if it was on a lifeless planet that no one would ever visit, that might count as NN utility.
*Technically the rock formation wouldn’t be beautiful since something’s beauty is a property of the mind beholding it, not a property of the object. But then you could just steel man that statement to say you desire the existence of a rock formation that would be found beautiful by a mind beholding it, even if no mind ever beholds it.
Actually, my aesthetics seem to be based as much on very powerful and possibly baseless intuitions of “completeness” as they do about beauty.
Omega offers to create a dead universe containing a printout of all possible chess games, and a printout of all possible chess games minus n randomly selected ones; my absurdly strong preference for the former is unaffected by his stipulation that no agent will ever interact with said universe and that I myself will immediately forget the conversation. And I don’t even like chess.
What’s the difference between M-utility and NN-utility? Does it have to do with the psychology of why you have the preference? What if there’s an alien with radically different psychology from us, and they developed morality-like preferences to help them cooperate, but they don’t think about them the way we think about morality? Would they have M-utility? Also, the separation between E-utility and M/NN-utility will get fuzzy if we can make uploads.
It’s hard to explicitly define the difference. I feel like preferring that other people have positive utility, and preferring that human beings exist instead of paperclippers, is a moral preference, whereas preferring that paperclips exist is an NN preference. So maybe M-utility involves my nonpersonal preferences that are about other people in some way, while NN preferences are nonpersonal preferences about things other than people.