TorqueDrifter comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! (July 2012) - Less Wrong

20 Post author: ciphergoth 18 July 2012 05:24PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (843)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: TorqueDrifter 13 November 2012 03:36:48AM 3 points [-]

Suppose your moral intuitions cause you to evaluate worlds based on your prospects as a potential human - as in, in pop A you will get utility -10, in pop B you get an expected (1/m)(-n) + (m-1/m)(-9.9). These intuitions could correspond to a straightforward "maximize expected util of 'being someone in this world'", or something like "suppose all consciousness is experienced by a single entity from multiple perspectives, completing all lives and then cycling back again from the beginning, maximize this being's utility". Such perspectives would give the "non-intuitive" result in these sorts of thought experiments.

Comment author: TorqueDrifter 14 November 2012 05:46:04AM 1 point [-]

Hm, a downvote. Is my reasoning faulty? Or is someone objecting to my second example of a metaphysical stance that would motivate this type of calculation?

Comment author: MugaSofer 14 November 2012 09:47:04AM 0 points [-]

Perhaps people simply objected to the implied selfish motivations.

Comment author: TorqueDrifter 14 November 2012 05:23:05PM 1 point [-]

Perhaps! Though I certainly didn't intend to imply that this was a selfish calculation - one could totally believe that the best altruistic strategy is to maximize the expected utility of being a person.