The way I framed it originally your only choices were create him or not.
I mean alter the problem so that instead of him making you miserable, he makes you less happy.
I think the counterintuitive implications of total and average utilitarianism are caused by the fact that having high total and high average levels of utility are both good things, and that trying to maximize one at the expense of the other leads to dystopia.
If you're adding them, one will dominate. Are you multiplying them or something?
I don't think it takes significantly more resources to have a happy human than a neutral human. It might at our current technology level, but that's not always going to be a problem.
About the practical applications: you'd have to create people who would do good in their universe conditional on the fact that you'd make them, and they'd have to have a comparable prior probability of existing. More generally, you'd do something another likely agent would consider good (make paper clips, for example) when that agent would do what you consider good conditional on the fact that you'd do what they consider good.
I don't really think the trade-offs would be worth while. We would have to have a significant comparative advantage making paperclips. Then again, maybe we'd have a bunch of spare non-semiconductors (or non-carbon, if you're a carbon chauvinist), and the clippy would have a bunch of spare semiconductors, so we could do it cheaply.
Also, a lesser version of this works with EDT (and MWI). Clippys actually exist, just not in our Everett branch. The reason it's lesser is that we can take the fact that we're in this Everett branch as evidence that ours is more likely. The clippys would do the same if they use EDT, but there's no reason we can't do acausal trade with UDTers.
If you're adding them, one will dominate. Are you multiplying them or something?
I'm regarding each as a single value that contributes, with diminishing returns, to an "overall value." Because they have diminishing returns one can never dominate the other, they both have to increase at the same rate. The question isn't "What should we maximize, total or average?" the question is "We have X resources, what percentage should we use to increase total utility and what percentage should we use to increase average utility?" I ac...
I was recently reading about the Transparent Newcomb with your Existence at Stake problem, which, to make a long story short, states that you were created by Prometheus, who foresaw that you would one-box on Newcomb's problem and wouldn't have created you if he had foreseen otherwise. The implication is that you might need to one-box just to exist. It's a disturbing problem, and as I read it another even more disturbing problem started to form in my head. However, I'm not sure it's logically coherent (I'm really hoping it's not) and wanted to know what the rest of you thought. The problem goes:
One day you start thinking about a hypothetical nonexistant person named Bob who is a real jerk. If he existed he would make your life utterly miserable. However, if he existed he would want to make a deal with you. If he ever found himself existing in a universe where you have never existed he would create you, on the condition that if you found yourself existing in a universe where he had never existed you would create him. Hypothetical Bob is very good at predicting the behavior of other people, not quite Omega quality, but pretty darn good. Assume for the sake of the argument that you like your life and enjoy existing.
At first you dismiss the problem because of technical difficulties. Science hasn't advanced to the point where we can make people with such precision. Plus, there is a near-infinite number of far nicer hypothetical people who would make the same deal, when science reaches that point you should give creating them priority.
But then you see Omega drive by in its pickup truck. A large complicated machine falls off the back of the truck as it passes you by. Written on it, in Omega's handwriting, is a note that says "This is the machine that will create Bob the Jerk, a hypothetical person that [insert your name here] has been thinking about recently, if one presses the big red button on the side." You know Omega never lies, not even in notes to itself.
Do Timeless Decision Theory and Updateless Decision Theory say you have a counterfactual obligation to create Bob the Jerk, the same way you have an obligation to pay Omega in the Counterfactual Mugging, and the same way you might (I'm still not sure about this) have an obligation to one-box when dealing with Prometheus? Does this in turn mean that when we develop the ability to create people from scratch we should tile the universe with people who would make the counterfactual deal? Obviously it's that last implication that disturbs me.
I can think of multiple reasons why it might not be rational to create Bob the Jerk:
Are any of these objections valid, or am I just grasping at straws? I find the problem extremely disturbing because of its wider implications, so I'd appreciate it if someone with a better grasp of UDT and TDT analyzed it. I'd very much like to be refuted.