loqi comments on Average utilitarianism must be correct? - Less Wrong
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Comments (159)
This doesn't sound right to me. Assuming "world" means "world at time t", a utility function at the very least has type (World -> Utilons). It maps a single world to a single utility measure, but it's still defined over all worlds, the same way that (+3) is defined over all integers. If it was only defined for a single world it wouldn't really be much of a function, it'd be a constant.
We use expected utility due to uncertainty. If we had perfect information, we could maximize utility by searching over all action sequences, computing utility for each resulting world, and returning the sequence with the highest total utility.
I think this illustrates the problem with your definition. The utility you're maximizing is not the same as the "utility 101 for one future you". You first have to map future you's utility to just plain utility for any of this to make sense.
I meant "the domain of a utility function is a single world."
However, it turns out that the standard terminology includes both utility functions over a single world ("outcome"), and a big utility function over all possible worlds ("lottery").
My question/observation is still the same as it was, but my misuse of the terminology has mangled this whole thread.