= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
wedrifid comments on Morality as Parfitian-filtered Decision Theory? - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (270)
Ah, "the advantage of theft over honest toil". Writing down a definite noun phrase does not guarantee the existence of a thing in reality that it names.
Some specific references would help in discerning what, specifically, you are alluding to here. You say in another comment in this thread:
but you have not done this at all, merely made vague allusions to "the last 150 years" and "standard economic game theory".
Well, you can't get much more standard than Von Neumann and Morgenstern's "Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour". This book does not attempt to justify the hypothesis that we maximise something when we make decisions. That is an assumption that they adopt as part of the customary background for the questions they want to address. Historically, the assumption goes back to the questions about gambling that got probability theory started, in which there is a definite thing -- money -- that people can reasonably be regarded as maximising. Splitting utility from money eliminates complications due to diminishing marginal utility of money. The Utility Theorem does not prove, or attempt to prove, that we are maximisers. It is a not very deep mathematical theorem demonstrating that certain axioms on a set imply that it is isomorphic to an interval of the real line. The hypothesis that human preferences are accurately modelled as a function from choices to a set satisfying those axioms is nowhere addressed in the text.
I shall name this the Utility Hypothesis. What evidence are you depending on for asserting it?
That isn't a particularly good example. There are advantages to theft over honest toil. It is just considered inappropriate to acknowledge them.
I have a whole stash of audio books that I purchased with the fruit of 'honest toil'. I can no longer use them because they are crippled with DRM. I may be able to sift around and find the password somewhere but to be honest I suspect it would be far easier to go and 'steal' a copy.
Oh, then there's the bit where you can get a whole lot of money and stuff for free. That's an advantage!
It's a metaphor.
My point being that it is a bad metaphor.
I liked the metaphor. Russell was a smart man. But so was von Neumann, and Aumann and Myerson must have gotten their Nobel prizes for doing something useful.
Axiomatic "theft" has its place along side empirical "toil"
So, am I to understand that you like people with Nobel prizes? If I start writing the names of impressive people can I claim some of their status for myself too? How many times will I be able to do it before the claims start to wear thin?
Before I broke down and hit the Kibitz button I had a strong hunch that Clippy had written the above. Interesting. ;)
Only if you are endorsing their ideas in the face of an opposition which cannot cite such names. ;)
Sorry if it is wearing thin, but I am also tired of being attacked as if the ideas I am promoting mark me as some kind of crank.
I haven't observed other people referencing those same names both before and after your appearance having all that much impact on you. Nor have I taken seriously your attempts to present a battle between "Perplexed and all Nobel prize winners" vs "others". I'd be very surprised if the guys behind the names really had your back in these fights, even if you are convinced you are fighting in their honour.