Is the expected number finite, though? If you assign nonzero probability to a distribution with infinite EV, your overall EV will be infinite. If you can’t give a hard upper bound, i.e. you can’t prove that there exists some finite number N, such that the number of possible lives in the future is at most N with probability 1, it seems hard to rule out giving any weight to such distributions with infinite EV (although I am now just invoking Cromwell’s rule).
i.e. you can’t prove that there exists some finite number N, such that the number of possible lives in the future is at most N with probability 1,
I think you probably can? Edit: assuming current physics holds up, which is of course not probability 1. But I don’t think it makes sense to treat the event that it doesn’t seriously, in a Pascal’s mugging sense.
The topic under discussion is whether pascalian scenarios are a problem for utilitarianism, so we do need to take pascalian scenarios seriously, in this discussion.
Is the expected number finite, though? If you assign nonzero probability to a distribution with infinite EV, your overall EV will be infinite. If you can’t give a hard upper bound, i.e. you can’t prove that there exists some finite number N, such that the number of possible lives in the future is at most N with probability 1, it seems hard to rule out giving any weight to such distributions with infinite EV (although I am now just invoking Cromwell’s rule).
I think you probably can? Edit: assuming current physics holds up, which is of course not probability 1. But I don’t think it makes sense to treat the event that it doesn’t seriously, in a Pascal’s mugging sense.
The topic under discussion is whether pascalian scenarios are a problem for utilitarianism, so we do need to take pascalian scenarios seriously, in this discussion.