Chrysophylax comments on The Useful Idea of Truth - Less Wrong

77 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 October 2012 06:16PM

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Comment author: Chrysophylax 15 January 2013 08:01:00PM -1 points [-]

Utility has a single, absolute, unexpressible meaning. To say "X gives me Y utility" is pointless, because I am making a statement about qualia, which are inherently incommunicable - I cannot describe the quale "red" to a person without a visual cortex, because that person is incapable of experiencing red (or any other colour-quale). "X maximises my utility" is implied by the statements "X maximises my deity's utility" and "maximising my deity's utility maximises my utility", but this is not the same thing as saying that X should occur (which requires also that maximisng your own utility is your objective). Stripped of the word "utility", your statement reduces to "The statement 'If X is the end goal, and option A is the best way to achieve X, A should be chosen' is tautologous", which is true because this is the definition of the word "should".