Comment on Naturalism versus unbounded (or unmaximisable) utility options

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 10:41:00 GMT

Atleast in surreal numbers you could have infinidesimal chance of getting a (first order) infinite life span and have it able to win or lose against finite chance of finite life. In the transition to hyperreal analysis I expect that the improved accuracy of vanishingly small chances from arbitrary small reals to actually infinidesimal values would happen at the same time as the rewards go from arbitrary large values to actual infinite amounts.

Half of any first order infinidesimal chance could have some first order infinite reward that would make it beat some finite chance of finite reward. However if we have a second order infinidesimal chance of only a first order infinite reward then it loses to any finite expected utility. Not only do you have to attend whether the chance is infinite but how infinite.

There is a difference between an infinite amount and "grows without bound". If I mark the first order infinite with w: there is no trouble saying that a result of w+2 wins over w. Thus if the function does have a peak then it doesn't matter how high it is whether it is w times w or w to the power of w. In order to break things you would either have to have a scenario where god offers an unspesifiedly infinidesimal chance of equal infinite heaven time or have god offer the deal unspesifiedly many times. "a lot" isn't a number between 0 and 1 and thus not a propability. Similarly having an "unbounded amount" isn't a spesified amount and thus not a number.

The absurdity of the situation is it being ildefined or containing other contradictiction than infinities. For if god promises me (some possibly infinite amount) of days in heaven and I never receive them then god didn't make good on his promise. So despite gods abilities I am in the position to make him break his promise or I know beforehand that he can't deliver the goods. If you measure on "earned days on heaven" then only the one that continually accepts wins. If you measure days spent in heaven then only actually spending them counts and having them earned doesn't yet generate direct points. Whether or not an earned day indirectly means days spent is depenent on the ability to cash in and that is dependent on my choice. The situation doesn't have probabilities spesified in absense of the strategy used. Therefore any agent that tries to calculate the "right odds" from the description of the problem either has to use the strategy they will formulate as a basis (and this would totally negate any usefulness of coming up with the strategy) or their analysis assumes they use a different strategy than they actually end up using. So either they have to hear god proposing the deal wrong to execute on it right or they will get it right out of luck of assuming the right thing from the start. So contemplating on this issue you either come to know that your score is lower than it could be for another agent, realise that you don't model yourself correctly, you get max score because you guessed right or that you can't not know what your score is. Knowing that you solved the problem right is impossible.

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