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.
Of course, because the immediate pain of the thought of choosing B would outweigh the longer-term lesser pain of the thought of losing contact with your sister.
This has nothing to do with whether the events actually occur, and everything to do with your mapping of the experience of the conditions, as you imagine them for purposes of making a decision.
That is, the model you make of the future may refer to a hypothetical reality, but the thing you actually evaluate is not that reality, but your own reaction to that reality -- your present-tense experience in response to a constructed fiction made of previous experiences
It so happens that there is some correspondence between this (real) process and the way we would prefer to think we establish and evaluate our preferences. Specifically, both models will generate similar results, most of the time. It's just that the reasons we end up with for the responses are quite different.
But calling that latter concept "territory" is still a category error, because what you are using to evaluate it is still your perception of how you would experience the change.
We do not have preferences that are not about experience or our emotional labeling thereof; to the extent that we have "rational" preferences it is because they will ultimately lead to some desired emotion or sensation.
However, our brains are constructed in such a way so as to allow us to plausibly overlook and deny this fact, so that we can be honestly "sincere" in our altruism... specifically by claiming that our responses are "really" about things outside ourselves.
For example, your choice of "A" allows you to self-signal altruism, even if your sister would actually prefer death to being imprisoned on Mars for the rest of her life! Your choice isn't about making her life better, it's about you feeling better for the brief moment that you're aware you did something.
(That is, if you cared about something closer to the reality of what happens to your sister, rather than your experience of it, you'd have hesitated in that choice long enough to ask Omega whether she would prefer death to being imprisoned on Mars.)
Be charitable in your interpretation, and remember the Least Convenient Possible World principle. I was presuming that the setup was such that being alive on Mars wouldn't be a 'fate worse than death' for her; if it were, I'd choose differently. If you prefer, take the same hypothetical but with me on Mars,... (read more)