Nick_Tarleton comments on Exterminating life is rational - Less Wrong

17 Post author: PhilGoetz 06 August 2009 04:17PM

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Comment author: PhilGoetz 07 August 2009 01:03:54AM *  1 point [-]

It seems clear from context that he means it hedonistically, i.e. my own hedonistic experience is my only concern if I'm selfish; I don't care about what other people want or think.

Instead of trying to interpret the context, you should believe that I mean what I say literally. I repeat:

If you still think that you wouldn't, it's probably because you're thinking a 1% increase in your utility means something like a 1% increase in the pleasure you experience. It doesn't. It's a 1% increase in your utility. If you factor the rest of your universe into your utility function, then it's already in there.

In fact, I have already explained my usage of the word "selfish" to you in this same context, repeatedly, in a different post.

Psychohistorian wrote:

Utility curves are strictly arational. A rational paperclip maximizer is an entirely possible being. Any statement of the kind "Rational agents are/are not selfish" is a type error; selfishness is entirely orthogonal to rationality.

I quote myself again:

If you act in the interest of others because it's in your self-interest, you're selfish. Rational "agents" are "selfish", by definition, because they try to maximize their utility functions. An "unselfish" agent would be one trying to also maximize someone else's utility function. That agent would either not be "rational", because it was not maximizing its utiltity function; or it would not be an "agent", because agenthood is found at the level of the utility function.

Comment author: Nick_Tarleton 07 August 2009 03:19:29AM 1 point [-]

Of course, you have already shown that you choose to pretend I am using the word "selfish" in the colloquial sense which I have repeatedly explicitly said is not the sense I am using it in, in this post and in others, so this isn't going to help.

If it isn't working, why don't you try something different?

Comment author: PhilGoetz 07 August 2009 03:35:18AM 0 points [-]

(I deleted that paragraph.)

Do you have an idea for something else to try?

Comment author: Psychohistorian 07 August 2009 08:57:47AM 1 point [-]

I don't think it's really a necessary distinction; the idea of an unselfish utility maximizer doesn't quite make sense, because utility is defined so nebulously that pretty much everyone has to seek maximizing their utility.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 07 August 2009 02:45:21PM 0 points [-]

the idea of an unselfish utility maximizer doesn't quite make sense

You're right that it doesn't make sense, which is why some people assume I mean something else when I say "selfish". But a lot of commenters do seem to believe in unselfish utility maximizers, which is why I keep using the word.

Comment author: MichaelVassar 07 August 2009 03:10:46PM 0 points [-]

Avoiding morally charged words. If possible shy far far away from ANY pattern that people can automatically match against with system 2 so that system 1 stays engaged.
My article here http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/22/singularity-robots-computers-opinions-contributors-artificial-intelligence-09_land.html is an attempt to do this.

Comment author: Nick_Tarleton 07 August 2009 05:37:14PM *  1 point [-]

If possible shy far far away from ANY pattern that people can automatically match against with system 2 so that system 1 stays engaged.

Do you mean "system 1 ... system 2"?