loqi comments on Incremental Progress and the Valley - Less Wrong

38 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 04 April 2009 04:42PM

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Comment author: loqi 05 April 2009 07:12:23PM 1 point [-]

a time-varying function mapping utility over time into your satisfaction with your utility

I can't make any sense of this. I value happiness-the-brain-state, which means I value satisfaction with my situation in life. That is part of my utility function. The "life-states" are mere inputs, they don't exhaust the definition of "utility". If I can predict that a year after winning the lottery I won't be any happier than I am now, that bears directly on the expected utility of winning.

You say you're talking about "Happiness, defined to include all of your values", but the original mention of preferring truth to happiness had this for context: "I have been heartbroken, miserable, unfocused, and extremely ineffective since". This is surely talking about psychological happiness, not overall "value". Why such confusing terminology?