Why would value be disributed over some suitable measure of world-states in a way that can be described as a power law specifically (vs some other functional form where the most valuable states are rare)?
I agree with this. I’m probably being too much of a pedant, but it’s a slight detriment to our broader epistemic community that people use “power law” as a shorthand for “heavy-tailed distribution” or just “many OOMs of difference between best and worst/median outcomes.” I think it makes our thinking a bit less clear when we try to translate back and forth between intuitions and math.
For what it’s worth, I do specifically have power-law shaped intuitions about the value of pleasure as you arrange matter to optimize for it more and more. But I agree with you both, I didn’t argue for this and it’s not important to my core point.
Very much of a tangent, but do you have an short explanation for why the shape is likely to be a power-law? I think power laws are relatively rare in nature, and the more common generators of power law distributions (e.g. network effects) don’t seem to apply here.
I agree with this. I’m probably being too much of a pedant, but it’s a slight detriment to our broader epistemic community that people use “power law” as a shorthand for “heavy-tailed distribution” or just “many OOMs of difference between best and worst/median outcomes.” I think it makes our thinking a bit less clear when we try to translate back and forth between intuitions and math.
For what it’s worth, I do specifically have power-law shaped intuitions about the value of pleasure as you arrange matter to optimize for it more and more. But I agree with you both, I didn’t argue for this and it’s not important to my core point.
Apologies for doubting you!
Very much of a tangent, but do you have an short explanation for why the shape is likely to be a power-law? I think power laws are relatively rare in nature, and the more common generators of power law distributions (e.g. network effects) don’t seem to apply here.