elspood comments on Pinpointing Utility - Less Wrong

57 [deleted] 01 February 2013 03:58AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 02 February 2013 06:09:11AM 0 points [-]

requiring my utility function to conform to VNM

If you don't conform to VNM, you don't have a utility function.

I think you mean to refer to your decision algorithms.

Comment author: elspood 02 February 2013 08:20:16AM 0 points [-]

No, I mean if my utility function violates transitivity or other axioms of VNM, I more want to fix it than to throw out VNM as being invalid.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 February 2013 09:51:06AM 1 point [-]

if my utility function violates transitivity or other axioms of VNM

then it's not a utility function in the standard sense of the term.

Comment author: elspood 02 February 2013 08:24:02PM 0 points [-]

I think what you mean to tell me is: "say 'my preferences' instead of 'my utility function'". I acknowledge that I was incorrectly using these interchangeably.

I do think it was clear what I meant when I called it "my" function and talked about it not conforming to VNM rules, so this response felt tautological to me.