Thanks for the post, Michael! I strongly endorse expectational total hedonistic utilitarianism, but strongly upvoted it for thoughtfully challenging the status-quo, and because one should be nice to other value systems.
However, total welfare, and differences in total welfare between prospects, may be unbounded, because the number of moral patients and their welfares may be unbounded. There are no 100% sure finite upper bounds on how many of them we could affect.
I agree total welfare may be unbounded for the reasons you mention, but I would say differences in total welfare between prospects have to be bounded. I think we have perfect evidential symmetry (simple cluelessness) between prospects beyond a sufficiently large (positive or negative) welfare, in which case the difference between their welfare probability density functions is exactly 0. So I believe the tails of the differences in total welfare between prospects are bounded, and so are the expected differences in total welfare between prospects. One does not know the exact points the tails of the differences in total welfare between prospects reach 0, but that only implies decisions will fall short of perfect, not that what one should do is undefined, right?
This post is concerned with the implications of prospects with infinitely many possible outcomes and unbounded but finite value, not actual infinities, infinite populations or infinite ethics generally.
I am glad you focussed on real outcomes.
One might claim that we can uniformly bound the number of possible outcomes by a finite number across all prospects. But consider the maximum number across all prospects, and a maximally valuable (or maximally disvaluable) but finite value outcome. We should be able to consider another outcome not among the set. Add a bit more consciousness in a few places, or another universe in the multiverse, or extend the time that can support consciousness a little. So, the space of possibilities is infinite, and it’s reasonable to consider prospects with infinitely many possible outcomes.
I would reply to this as follows. If “the maximum number across all prospects” is well chosen, one will have perfect evidential symmetry between any prospects for higher welfare levels than the maximum. Consequently, there will be no difference between the prospects for outcomes beyond the maximum, and the expected difference between prospects will be maintained when we “add a bit more consciousness”.
On symmetry between options in the tails, if you think there’s no upper bound with certainty on how long our descendants could last, then reducing extinction risk could have unbounded effects. Maybe other x-risks, too. I do think heavy tails like this are very unlikely, but it’s hard to justifiably rule them out with certainty.
Or, you could have a heavy tail on the number of non-solipsist simulations, or the number of universes in our multiverse (if spatially very large, or the number of quantum branches, or the number of pocket universes, or if the universe will start over many times, like a Big Bounce, etc.), and acausal influence over what happens in them.
Thanks for the post, Michael! I strongly endorse expectational total hedonistic utilitarianism, but strongly upvoted it for thoughtfully challenging the status-quo, and because one should be nice to other value systems.
I agree total welfare may be unbounded for the reasons you mention, but I would say differences in total welfare between prospects have to be bounded. I think we have perfect evidential symmetry (simple cluelessness) between prospects beyond a sufficiently large (positive or negative) welfare, in which case the difference between their welfare probability density functions is exactly 0. So I believe the tails of the differences in total welfare between prospects are bounded, and so are the expected differences in total welfare between prospects. One does not know the exact points the tails of the differences in total welfare between prospects reach 0, but that only implies decisions will fall short of perfect, not that what one should do is undefined, right?
I am glad you focussed on real outcomes.
I would reply to this as follows. If “the maximum number across all prospects” is well chosen, one will have perfect evidential symmetry between any prospects for higher welfare levels than the maximum. Consequently, there will be no difference between the prospects for outcomes beyond the maximum, and the expected difference between prospects will be maintained when we “add a bit more consciousness”.
Thanks for engaging!
On symmetry between options in the tails, if you think there’s no upper bound with certainty on how long our descendants could last, then reducing extinction risk could have unbounded effects. Maybe other x-risks, too. I do think heavy tails like this are very unlikely, but it’s hard to justifiably rule them out with certainty.
Or, you could have a heavy tail on the number of non-solipsist simulations, or the number of universes in our multiverse (if spatially very large, or the number of quantum branches, or the number of pocket universes, or if the universe will start over many times, like a Big Bounce, etc.), and acausal influence over what happens in them.