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.
I've put a bit of thought into this over the years, and don't have a believable theory yet. I have learned quite a bit from the excercise, though.
1) I have many utility functions. Different parts of my identity or different frames of thought engage different preference orders, and there is no consistent winner. I bite this bullet: personal identity is a lie - I am a collective of many distinct algorithms. I also accept that Arrow’s impossibility theorem applies to my own decisions.
2) There are at least three dimensions (time, intensity, and risk) to my utility curves. None of these are anywhere near linear - the time element seems to be hyperbolic in terms of remembered happiness for past events, and while I try to keep it sane for future events, that's not my natural state, and I can't do it for all my pieces with equal effectiveness.
3) They change over time (which is different than the time element within the preference space). Things I prefer now, I will not necessarily prefer later. The meta-utility of balancing this possibly-anticipated change against the timeframe of the expected reward is very high, and I can sometimes even manage it.
Whilst this is true, it is in the interest of each of those algorithms to reciprocally unify with others, as opposed to continually struggling for control of the person in question.
Very good point, though.