I don’t understand why they’re working on infinite vectors of future populations, since it looks very likely that life will end after a finite length of time into the future (except for Boltzmann brains). Maybe they’re thinking of the infinity as extended in space rather than time? And of course, in that case it becomes arbitrary where the starting point is.
we can plausibly only affect a finite subset of the universe, and an infinite quantity of happiness is unchanged by the addition or subtraction of a finite amount of happiness.
Actually, every action we take makes an infinite difference. I was going to write more explanation here but then realized I should add it to my essay on infinity: here.
It might be the case that life will end after time T. But that’s different than saying it doesn’t matter whether life ends after time T, which a truncated utility function would say.
(But of course see theorem 4.8.1 above)
Thanks for the insight about multiverses – I haven’t thought much about it. Is what you say only true in a level one multiverse?
1) Fair enough. Also, there’s some chance we can affect Boltzmann brains that will exist indefinitely far into the future. (more discussion)
3) I added a new final paragraph to this section about that. Short answer is that I think it works for any of Levels I to III, and even with Level IV it depends on your philosophy of mathematics.
(Let me know if you see errors with my facts or reasoning.)
1) interesting, thanks!
3) I don’t think I know enough about physics to meaningfully comment. It sounds like you are disagreeing with the statement “we can plausibly only affect a finite subset of the universe”? And I guess more generally if physics predicts a multiverse of order w_i, you claim that we can affect w_i utils (because there are w_i copies of us)?
Yes, I was objecting to the claim that “we can plausibly only affect a finite subset of the universe”. Of course, I guess it remains plausible that we can only affect a finite subset; I just wouldn’t say it’s highly probable.
you claim that we can affect wi utils
Yes, unless the type of multiverse predicts that the measure of copies of algorithms like ours is zero. That doesn’t seem true of Levels I to III.
Also, if one uses my (speculative) physics-sampling assumption for anthropics, a hypothesis that predicts measure zero for copies of ourselves has probability zero. On the other hand, the self-indication assumption would go hog wild for a huge Level IV multiverse.
Thanks for the summary. :)
I don’t understand why they’re working on infinite vectors of future populations, since it looks very likely that life will end after a finite length of time into the future (except for Boltzmann brains). Maybe they’re thinking of the infinity as extended in space rather than time? And of course, in that case it becomes arbitrary where the starting point is.
Actually, every action we take makes an infinite difference. I was going to write more explanation here but then realized I should add it to my essay on infinity: here.
Thanks Brian – insightful as always.
It might be the case that life will end after time T. But that’s different than saying it doesn’t matter whether life ends after time T, which a truncated utility function would say.
(But of course see theorem 4.8.1 above)
Thanks for the insight about multiverses – I haven’t thought much about it. Is what you say only true in a level one multiverse?
1) Fair enough. Also, there’s some chance we can affect Boltzmann brains that will exist indefinitely far into the future. (more discussion)
3) I added a new final paragraph to this section about that. Short answer is that I think it works for any of Levels I to III, and even with Level IV it depends on your philosophy of mathematics.
(Let me know if you see errors with my facts or reasoning.)
1) interesting, thanks! 3) I don’t think I know enough about physics to meaningfully comment. It sounds like you are disagreeing with the statement “we can plausibly only affect a finite subset of the universe”? And I guess more generally if physics predicts a multiverse of order w_i, you claim that we can affect w_i utils (because there are w_i copies of us)?
Yes, I was objecting to the claim that “we can plausibly only affect a finite subset of the universe”. Of course, I guess it remains plausible that we can only affect a finite subset; I just wouldn’t say it’s highly probable.
Yes, unless the type of multiverse predicts that the measure of copies of algorithms like ours is zero. That doesn’t seem true of Levels I to III.
Also, if one uses my (speculative) physics-sampling assumption for anthropics, a hypothesis that predicts measure zero for copies of ourselves has probability zero. On the other hand, the self-indication assumption would go hog wild for a huge Level IV multiverse.