timtyler comments on Utility is unintuitive - Less Wrong

-5 Post author: jsteinhardt 09 December 2010 05:39AM

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Comment author: timtyler 09 December 2010 09:20:35PM 0 points [-]

That's the issue of the usefulness of the Axiom of Independence - I believe.

You can drop that - though you are still usually left with expected utility maximisation.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 10 December 2010 12:02:42AM 1 point [-]

Then you become a money pump.

Comment author: timtyler 10 December 2010 05:28:47PM 0 points [-]

It is the most commonly dropped axiom. Dropping it has the advantage of allowing you use the framework to model a wider range of intelligent agents - increasing the scope of the model.

Comment author: Perplexed 09 December 2010 09:29:42PM 0 points [-]

That's the issue of the usefulness of the Axiom of Independence - I believe.

What is the issue? Where, in my account, does AoI come into play? And why do you suggest that AoI only sometimes makes a difference?

Comment author: timtyler 09 December 2010 09:53:01PM *  0 points [-]

My comments about independence were triggered by:

Recall that the way we rationalized away money risk aversion was to claim that money units become less useful as our wealth increases. Is there some rationalization which shows that utility units become less pleasing as happiness increases.

The independence axiom says "no" - I think - though it is "just" an axiom.

Comment author: timtyler 09 December 2010 09:46:07PM 0 points [-]

For the last question, if you drop axioms you are still usually left with expected utility maximisation - though it depends on exactly how much you drop at once. Maybe it will just be utility maximisation that is left - for example.

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