timtyler comments on The Domain of Your Utility Function - Less Wrong

24 Post author: Peter_de_Blanc 23 June 2009 04:58AM

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Comment author: timtyler 24 June 2009 08:41:18PM 2 points [-]

The arguments in the posts themselves seem unimpressive to me in this context. If there are strong arguments that human actions cannot, in principle, be modelled well by using a utility function, perhaps they should be made explicit.

Comment author: MichaelBishop 24 June 2009 09:16:06PM 0 points [-]

Agreed. Now, if it were possible to write a complete utility function for some person, it would be pretty clear that "utility" did not equal happiness, or anything simple like that.

Comment author: timtyler 24 June 2009 09:51:55PM *  0 points [-]

I tend to think that the best candidate in most organisms is "expected fitness". It's probably reasonable to expect fairly heavy correlations with reward systems in brains - if the organisms have brains.

Comment author: timtyler 24 June 2009 09:05:48PM *  0 points [-]

Agents which can't be modelled by a utility-based framework are:

  • Agents which are infinite;
  • Agents with uncomputable utility functions.

AFAIK, there's no good evidence that either kind of agent can actually exist. Counter-arguments are welcome, of course.