wedrifid comments on A Fate Worse Than Death - Less Wrong

2 Post author: giambolvoe 02 January 2011 09:23AM

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Comment author: wedrifid 03 January 2011 08:03:17AM *  0 points [-]

All things being equal, it is better to be alive than dead.

I don't think that really means anything.

It is a straightforward declaration of preference. The speaker prefers life to death. Extracting meaning from that is not hard.

"Existence being pleasurable" would work better.

If you wish to change the preference declaration from 'like life' to 'like pleasure'.

Comment author: NihilCredo 04 January 2011 03:09:25PM *  0 points [-]

It is a straightforward declaration of preference. The speaker prefers life to death. Extracting meaning from that is not hard.

The problem is that "all things being equal" is a terrible choice of words. It very strongly implies that the speaker doesn't always prefer life to death (otherwise he would have just said "It is better to be alive than dead"), but it gives the listener no clue as to what exactly are the speaker's criteria for a living state to be better than the dead state.

What are the "things" that are supposed to be or not be equal between Universe A where I'm alive and Universe B where I'm dead?