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cousin_it comments on The proper use of regret? - Less Wrong Discussion
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It seems to me that Caplan is making approximately the same mistake as the guy who says "I'm glad I don't like spinach, because if I did then I would eat it, and I can't stand the stuff". But that's just a vague feeling and I don't have any general principle to rule out such mistakes. Anyone?
I don't see how it's even approximately the same mistake.
Caplan is correct in thinking that his children would be different persons than who they are now, if there were any alterations to his past. He is correct in thinking Caplan-now would not love these children. He also realizes that Caplan-counterfactual would love these children.
It's as with the pebble sorters. You could acknowledge that you would find prime number heaps morally correct if you were to become a pebble sorter yet deny that prime number heaps are morally correct.
I just don't think it's a very productive regret Caplan is having there. Because he should regret some parts of his past life because such regret would be instrumental in making his future better.
I feel the mistake is in transplanting Caplan-now into the universe of Caplan-counterfactual, just like the guy in my quote transplants himself into a bizarre alternate universe where he eats spinach despite hating it. It would make more sense to empathize with Caplan-counterfactual directly.
Hmm it depends on what you're trying to accomplish with the counterfactual I think. Is there a particular reason why you think it would make more sense to empathize with the Caplan-counterfactual, independent of it being more 'consistent' I guess?
Not sure. I can't dissolve my own confusion about the question yet. But a big part of it is indeed about consistency: it worries me that both Caplan-now and Caplan-counterfactual claim to have no regrets about the past, even though their pasts are different.
Well I don't think it makes sense to regret one's entire past and be satisfied with merely that. You want to draw specific lessons from your past. An ideal agent might not need regret of course, being able to learn from past mistakes without a feeling of regret toward a specific event which gave rise to the general lesson. But I think humans might find it useful to have an event serve as a reminder of a lesson learned.
We can interpret Caplan's "no regret" (perhaps too charitably) as "my past does not contain any lessons wrt. me behaving in a certain way in order to have my children be a certain way". But this leaves room for other lesson-specific regret wrt. other genuine lessons.
As for the massive counterfactual of "Caplan having behaved even minisculely different in his past", I think it's quite useless and hence meaningless, at least with respect to Caplan and his children. It doesn't help him better raise his children, for example. It's like how not every English sentence corresponds to a meaningful statement.
There is likely no possible alternate past or present in which Caplan does not love his children. I don't think you are wrong with regard to your thoughts of what constitutes a valuable function of regret, but in this case the argument he makes is almost incomprehensible; and to the extent that it can have a coherent meaning it is wrong.