I would summarize this post as, “Some people claim that the argument to a utility function must be a state of mind. However, a state of the universe is more general than a state of mind [for a certain meaning of ‘general’ that reminds me of Haskell’s monads]. Therefore, the argument to a utility function need not be a state of mind.” Unfortunately, this is a non sequitur, and the post doesn’t seem to have any redeeming qualities other than this argument.
That doesn’t seem a fair summary to me. I take the post to be arguing against a specific argument for the claim that the argument to a utility function must be a state of mind: viz, just because we can only evaluate things using our minds, doesn’t mean that we can only care about states of our minds.
I would summarize this post as, “Some people claim that the argument to a utility function must be a state of mind. However, a state of the universe is more general than a state of mind [for a certain meaning of ‘general’ that reminds me of Haskell’s monads]. Therefore, the argument to a utility function need not be a state of mind.” Unfortunately, this is a non sequitur, and the post doesn’t seem to have any redeeming qualities other than this argument.
That doesn’t seem a fair summary to me. I take the post to be arguing against a specific argument for the claim that the argument to a utility function must be a state of mind: viz, just because we can only evaluate things using our minds, doesn’t mean that we can only care about states of our minds.
I guess I shouldn’t assume that things that seem useless to me are also useless to other people.