Open thread, September 15-21, 2014

gjm

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If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

I was thinking about anthropics after seeing some posts here about it. I read the series of posts on ADT including http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/8aw/anthropic_decision_theory_iv_solving_selfish_and/, and EY's posts http://lesswrong.com/lw/17c/outlawing_anthropics_an_updateless_dilemma/, http://lesswrong.com/lw/19d/the_anthropic_trilemma/, and http://lesswrong.com/lw/17d/forcing_anthropics_boltzmann_brains/. I had a few questions about those posts.

First, how is average utilitarian defined in a non-circular way? I'm trying to wrap my head around why I don't agree with the conclusions of the first post I linked, and it seems to come down to not understanding average utilitarians.

More specifically, do they define two levels of utility? Or do they exclude themselves from the calculation? I thought it was just a different way of allocating your own utility, but how do you calculate which way will give you the most utility by giving the world a greater average utility, without knowing the answer of your own utility to plug in?

Second, in http://lesswrong.com/lw/19d/the_anthropic_trilemma/ EY ended off with

I will be extremely impressed if Less Wrong solves this one.

Has he been officially "impressed" yet? Should I read any specific attempts to solve the trilemma? What reading can I do on anthropics to get an idea of the major ideas in the field?

It seems to me that SIA, in the way it's been applied, is obviously correct, and in general I feel like I have very clear intuitions on these kind of problems. I plan on writing up something eventually, after I understand the argument against my point-of-view to argue coherently.

First, how is average utilitarian defined in a non-circular way?

If you can quantify a proto-utility across some set of moral patients (i.e. some thing that is measurable for each thing/person we care about), then you can then call your utility the average of proto-utility over moral patients. For example, you could define your set of moral patients to be the set of humans, and each human's proto-utility to be the amount of money they have, then average by summing the money and dividing by the number of humans.

I don't necessarily endorse that approach, o... (read more)