SeventhNadir comments on Contrived infinite-torture scenarios: July 2010 - Less Wrong

24 Post author: PlaidX 23 July 2010 11:54PM

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Comment author: SeventhNadir 24 July 2010 02:07:16AM 2 points [-]

Jokes aside, is that a common criticism of consequentialist ethics? How do we determine the "morality" of an act by its consequences if the consequences extend into time infinitely and are unknown to us beyond the most temporally immediate?

Comment author: CarlShulman 24 July 2010 06:32:05AM *  7 points [-]

Expected values and priors.

Comment author: CarlShulman 24 July 2010 07:15:34AM 8 points [-]

Saving someone from being eaten by bears might lead them to conceive the next Hitler, but it probably won't (saith my subjective prior). Even with an infinite future, I assign a substantial probability to hypotheses like:

  1. Avoiding human extinction will result in a civilization with an expected positive impact.
  2. Particular sorts of human global governance will enable coordination problems to be solved on very large scales.

And so forth. I won't be very confident about the relevant causal connections, but I have betting odds to offer on lots of possibilities, and those let me figure out general directions to go.