prase comments on A response to "Torture vs. Dustspeck": The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas - Less Wrong

-4 Post author: Logos01 30 November 2011 03:34AM

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Comment author: prase 30 November 2011 11:49:26AM *  0 points [-]

What makes this counterintuitive?

You have probably misread. The counterintuitive fact is that there are two kinds of (finitely) bad events A and B, B only very slightly worse than A, such that there is a finite number of Bs which is worse than any (possibly infinite) number of As. Explained in detail in the Unknown's comment linked above.

Comment author: Logos01 30 November 2011 12:00:22PM 0 points [-]

You have probably misread.

  1. "there must exist some bad event such that no number of ever-so-slightly-less-bad events can be as bad as a finite number of the bad events." is not an equivalent statement to "there are two kinds of (finitely) bad events A and B, B only very slightly worse than A, such that there is a finite number of Bs which is worse than any (possibly infinite) number of As." -- It removes the finiteness of the "original" bad event. That's very significant.

  2. Unknown's comment really doesn't bear relevance to my position, as I actively rejected the notion of the asymptotic limit for the dustspecks. (Hence my rejection of the "logistic" rather than "logarithmic".)

Comment author: prase 30 November 2011 12:52:56PM 0 points [-]

I have refered to Unknown's comment not because I thought you accepted asymptotic limit of cumulative disutility, but because this was providing the context in which the statement

there must exist some bad event such that no number of ever-so-slightly-less-bad events can be as bad as a finite number of the bad events

was made. The "original" bad event corresponds to a stubbed toe in the linked comment, something whose disutility is certainly finite. Infinite disutilities were mentioned nowhere in the debate and finite badness of the former event is also clear from that the latter event (finitely bad) is said to be "ever-so-slightly-less-bad" than the former.

Comment author: Logos01 30 November 2011 01:56:10PM 0 points [-]

The "original" bad event corresponds to a stubbed toe in the linked comment, something whose disutility is certainly finite.

If my view of logarithmic quantification for suffering is valid, then the stubbed-toe would be of vastly greater 'anti-utilon' quantity than the dust-speck in the eye; and torture that much moreso.

finite badness of the former event is also clear from that the latter event (finitely bad) is said to be "ever-so-slightly-less-bad" than the former.

That holds true and relevant under Unknown's context and metrics, but not under mine; a stubbed-toe plus a dust-specking is "ever so slightly worse" than a stubbed-toe alone -- but because this has no asymptotic limit, Unknown's 'counterintuitive result' is irrelevant; it does not manifest.

Comment author: prase 30 November 2011 04:13:53PM *  0 points [-]

If my view of logarithmic quantification for suffering is valid, then the stubbed-toe would be of vastly greater 'anti-utilon' quantity than the dust-speck in the eye; and torture that much moreso.

Is it meant to be a refutation of my claim that disutility of a stubbed toe is finite? Else, I don't see the relevance.

Unknown's 'counterintuitive result' is irrelevant; it does not manifest

Remember that originally you have written that it (more precisely Zack_M_Davis's restatement of it) is not counter-intuitive, not that it is irrelevant. Irrelevance was never disputed.