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NancyLebovitz comments on Making Beliefs Pay Rent (in Anticipated Experiences) - Less Wrong
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But why do beliefs need to pay rent in anticipated experiences? Why can’t they pay rent in utility?
If some average Joe believes he’s smart and beautiful, and that gives him utility, is that necessarily a bad thing? Joe approaches a girl in a bar, dips his sweaty fingers in her iced drink, cracks a piece of ice in his teeth, pulls it out of his mouth, shoves it in her face for demonstration, and says, “Now that I’d broken the ice—”
She thinks: “What a butt-ugly idiot!” and gets the hell away from him.
Joe goes on happily believing that he’s smart and beautiful.
For myself, the answer is obvious: my beliefs are means to an end, not ends in themselves. They’re utility producers only insofar as they help me accomplish utility-producing operations. If I were to buy stock believing that its price would go up, I better hope my belief paid its rent in correct anticipation, or else it goes out the door.
But for Joe? If he has utility-pumping beliefs, then why not? It’s not like he would get any smarter or prettier by figuring out he’s been a butt-ugly idiot this whole time.
Is there a difference between utility and anticipated experiences? I can see a case that utility is probability of anticipated, desired experiences, but for purposes of this argument, I don't think that makes for an important difference.
"Smart and beautiful" Joe is being Pascal's-mugged by his own beliefs. His anticipated experiences lead to exorbitantly high utility. When failure costs (relatively) little, it subtracts little utility by comparison.
I suppose you could use the same argument for the lottery-playing Joe. And you would realize that people like Joe, on average, are worse off. You wouldn't want to be Joe. But once you are Joe, his irrationality looks different from the inside.