A lot of rationalist thinking about ethics and economy assumes we have very well defined utility functions - knowing exactly our preferences between states and events, not only being able to compare them (I prefer X to Y), but assigning precise numbers to every combinations of them (p% chance of X equals q% chance of Y). Because everyone wants more money, you should theoretically even be able to assign exact numerical values to positive outcomes in your life.
I did a small experiment of making a list of things I wanted, and giving them point value. I must say this experiment ended up in a failure - thinking "If I had X, would I take Y instead", and "If I had Y, would I take X instead" very often resulted in a pair of "No"s. Even thinking about multiple Xs/Ys for one Y/X usually led me to deciding they're really incomparable. Outcomes related to similar subject were relatively comparable, those in different areas in life were usually not.
I finally decided on some vague numbers and evaluated the results two months later. My success on some fields was really big, on other fields not at all, and the only thing that was clear was that numbers I assigned were completely wrong.
This leads me to two possible conclusions:
- I don't know how to draw utility functions, but they are a good model of my preferences, and I could learn how to do it.
- Utility functions are really bad match for human preferences, and one of the major premises we accept is wrong.
Anybody else tried assigning numeric values to different outcomes outside very narrow subject matter? Have you succeeded and want to share some pointers? Or failed and want to share some thought on that?
I understand that details of many utility functions will be highly personal, but if you can share your successful ones, that would be great.
So, we're just listing how much we'd buy things for? I don't see why it's supposed to be hard.
I guess it gets a bit complicated when you consider combinations of things, rather than just their marginal value. For example, once I have a computer with an internet connection, I care for little else. Still, I just have to figure out what would be about neutral, and decide how much I'd pay an hour (or need to be payed an hour) to go from that to something else.
Playing a vaguely interesting game on the computer = 0.
Doing something interesting = 1-3.
Talking to a cute girl = 5.
Talking to a cute girl I know = 8.
Talking to the girl I really like = 50.
Thinking about a girl I really like if I talked to her within the last couple of days, or probably will within a couple of days = 4.
Having hugged the girl I really like within the last two hours = 50.
Hugging a cute girl I know = 50. Note that this one only lasts for about a second, so it's only about a 7000th as good as the last one.
Hugging a cute girl I don't know = 20.
Hugging anyone else except my brother = 10.
Homework = -2, unless it's interesting.
Eating while hungry = 2.
Asleep = ??? I have no idea how to figure that one out.
I didn't use dollar value because I'm too cheap to actually spend money. Knowing how much I can help people for the same cost will do that to you. Check out the Disease Control Priorities Project (http://tinyurl.com/y9wpk5e). There's one for $3 a QALY. Even the hugging the girl I like I only estimate at 0.02 QALYs.
Using that estimate, one unit is about twice my average happiness. More accurate than I'd expect.
The link is really interesting!