tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post8923501194015105058..comments2024-02-15T06:35:18.238-05:00Comments on *Reflective Disequilibrium*: Rawls' original position, potential people, and Pascal's MuggingCarlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-71477894227049509322018-05-13T15:29:57.796-04:002018-05-13T15:29:57.796-04:00I agree with Robi Rahman. The whole and entire poi...I agree with Robi Rahman. The whole and entire point of the Rawl's Veil of Ignorance or similar devices is to ground "what would be good for society" in "what would be good for me", to produce surprisingly nice altruistic rules from pure self-interest tempered by uncertainty of your own future place.<br /><br />If you remove that part then there's no actual core argument any more, all these "preferences of souls for an egalitarian society though they are not going to experience it themselves" are left floating. I for one would prefer a world full of drama and hilarious absurdity, if I were allowed to watch. Wait a second...Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11926702777904400228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-27097590829135391072017-03-27T12:19:43.419-04:002017-03-27T12:19:43.419-04:00"Souls might value an egalitarian society at ..."Souls might value an egalitarian society at 1 unit of utility, and getting to exist in it at 1,000,000,000 units, but the former would dominate."<br /><br />I think this part of the reasoning is flawed. Why would a soul inherently value an egalitarian society over some other kind of society except to the extent that they have a chance of living in it?<br /><br />Assume you are one of the pre-born souls who will NOT get to live in the society. Then why would you have any preference as to whether the world you are not living in is egalitarian or not? In that case I would value an egalitarian state of the society at 0 utils and a non-egalitarian state at 0 utils as well.Robi Rahmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-72193586274973414082014-08-31T02:34:32.297-04:002014-08-31T02:34:32.297-04:00Does this argument still work in an infinite unive...Does this argument still work in an infinite universe? To make it go through, would you just argue that most minds / brain histories have low measure?esrogshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15133684924653398437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-54831564220134669732014-01-28T16:34:44.708-05:002014-01-28T16:34:44.708-05:00I agree with others that this is an intriguing ide...I agree with others that this is an intriguing idea.<br /><br />If we naively weighted just by a strict count of "number of possible people in person-space with a given preference," we'd run into troubles. There might be just as many preferences for great art <i>not</i> to exist as for it to exist. It's easy enough to imagine "art hating" minds, and they might be about as common in mind-space as "art loving" minds -- just hook up the wiring to disgust centers instead of beauty centers of the brain. For that matter, there may be as many sadists as altruists in possible-mind-space.<br /><br />A more intuitive weighting would be the actual prevalence of evolved or built minds in the multiverse. Then, for instance, suffering reducers would be much more common than suffering increasers because organisms evolve to dislike suffering by themselves, their kin, and their reciprocal trading partners. Societies <a href="http://www.scifiideas.com/related/writing-advice/aliens-and-morality/" rel="nofollow">should often</a> develop norms against cruelty for collective benefit.<br /><br />Actually, weighting by prevalence in the multiverse has an obvious justification: Those people don't just potentially exist but actually exist! So it's more clear that their preferences should be satisfied, even to a run-of-the-mill preference utilitarian as long as she cares about preferences that are fulfilled outside the organism's own light cone or universe. The analogue of Carl's point is that if gazillions of aliens care even a tiny sliver about how human society is constructed, those preferences may dominate humans' own views on how their society is constructed. Of course, one might imagine commonplace views that place high value on the autonomy of societies to choose their own preferred destinies.<br /><br />If only by quantum randomness, <i>all possible</i> people exist with some measure, but the weighting matters, and the natural weighting is their actual frequency of existence. Talk about possible-but-not-actual souls is no longer needed.Brian Tomasikhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10510289096715716609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-46038363484510489022012-09-22T16:21:29.988-04:002012-09-22T16:21:29.988-04:00At any given time you never have just two choices,...At any given time you never have just two choices, you have billions. Simply announcing your life extension proposal in different words or at different times scrambles people. Carlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-89245090364880924232012-09-22T13:48:36.171-04:002012-09-22T13:48:36.171-04:00Hello Carl,
"I don't think so. Remember ...Hello Carl,<br /><br />"I don't think so. Remember the non-identity problem: almost every minor action we take scrambles which sperm and eggs unite, the times of conception and birth, etc. There are more possible humans who could be born next year depending on our actions today than there are atoms in the universe. As we consider more ways in which people can vary (developmental noise in different organ systems, different alleles for genetic difference, etc) the number of possible people goes up exponentially."<br /><br /><br />My suggestion was poorly stated. Let me try a renovation:<br /><br />Consider having to make a choice, A or B, at a given time t. (For concreteness, suppose A = banning life extension, B = not banning life extension). It seems to me we can can consider the future of A-world or B-world forward from t and see which (and how many) people exist. Then we convene a parliament with a soul for every possible person who will exist in one or both of these worlds. <br /><br />Although due to the 'scrambling effects' you mention A-world and B-world will have fewer shared persons than we might at first suspect, doing things this way seems to 'bracket out' all the future persons contingent on time of conception, other choices, etc. So even on bounded utility the souls in this parliament look to have a strong interest in picking whichever of A or B has more opportunities for incarnation. <br /><br />No obvious reason arises to me why deploying 'sub parliaments' for each choice available is worse than having a 'grand parliament' try and decide every different number question together, leading to the swamping concerns you outline.<br /><br />Sorry if I'm still just not 'getting it'. Any further forbearance gratefully appreciated.Thrasymachushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14406462333873084622noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-29851627900837625212012-09-22T02:39:47.892-04:002012-09-22T02:39:47.892-04:00"The parliaments will be much smaller if we u..."The parliaments will be much smaller if we use the latter method, as the souls will not exceed the slots, and so the pro-natalist character remains."<br /><br />I don't think so. Remember the non-identity problem: almost every minor action we take scrambles which sperm and eggs unite, the times of conception and birth, etc. There are more possible humans who could be born next year depending on our actions today than there are atoms in the universe. As we consider more ways in which people can vary (developmental noise in different organ systems, different alleles for genetic difference, etc) the number of possible people goes up exponentially.Carlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-61667280674154952222012-09-17T17:17:22.815-04:002012-09-17T17:17:22.815-04:00Hello Carl. I've also been interested in exten...Hello Carl. I've also been interested in extending original position ideas into different-number cases, through the lens of a paper on life-extension I'm writing. Apologies if the below is long, unclear, and meritless:<br /><br />What would motivate us to use 'all possible people' for our parliament, instead of convening a parliament on a choice-by-choice basis and restricting entry of souls to 'all possible people <i>who could exist in at least one possible world we can choose</i>? <br /><br />The parliaments will be much smaller if we use the latter method, as the souls will not exceed the slots, and so the pro-natalist character remains. I have some intuitions that prefer the latter method: a parliament of souls blinded to the counter-factuals of their own existence but not to their brain history or DNA or whatever their personal identity resides in could find out whether they have any chance of existence once informed of the laws of nature, in what circumstances people could exist and choices available, etc. Those who have no chance have no stake (and so indifference), and the 'remaining players' may have enough of a stake that even bounding their utility makes their desire to increase their odds of incarnation important. <br /><br />Do you see anything that motivates using your method of convening parliaments over this alternative, or costs of this 'other method' that I've missed?<br /><br />In any case, if we get varying results on 'diluting the stakes' for a given soul is intriguing. Some of the perplexity may boil down to old problems re. (un)bounded utilities, but further exploration might give reasons to reject original position-like reasoning if (like person-affecting views) it proves very problematic to deploy it in different number cases.Thrasymachushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14406462333873084622noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-33723594825920417782012-07-23T08:15:21.223-04:002012-07-23T08:15:21.223-04:00Peli, your comment is welcome.Peli, your comment is welcome.Carlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-14478091502056718292012-07-23T06:49:15.619-04:002012-07-23T06:49:15.619-04:00I think part of this argument can be generalized: ...I think part of this argument can be generalized: every population-maximizing principle that appeals to the preference of possible persons to exist faces the problem of explaining why it's not equally valuable to satisfy other preferences of possible persons. What I think is really interesting is that replying that the point is not to satisfy the preference of a possible person but to bring a possible satisfied preference into existence can't work: it's obviously bad to bring into existence a suicidal person whose preference for never existing is exceeded only by her preference that the moon orbit the earth (or some other fact that obtains whether she exists or not), even though bringing her into existence is a net increase in the amount of satisfied preferences in existence. <br /><br />(I hope this didn't stray too far off-topic by attempting to generalize.)Peli Grietzerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02338260572782761649noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-75756689353571405152012-07-19T14:46:03.954-04:002012-07-19T14:46:03.954-04:00Paul, yes there are extra degrees of freedom there...Paul, yes there are extra degrees of freedom there to mess around with conclusions. Regarding the mention of average welfare, I was thinking of aesthetics: "this society is more beautiful than Muzak-and-potatoes, despite its smaller size." I do think there is a distinction between "you are obligated to participate in this institution which was best for you ex ante" and "you like the aesthetics of a society that looks like so-and-so."Carlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-78665053619474949312012-07-19T13:27:37.405-04:002012-07-19T13:27:37.405-04:00Interesting point. I think I basically buy it as a...Interesting point. I think I basically buy it as a consequence of applying the original position to possible people. I am skeptical about trying to take some moral intuitions and saying they should come from considering the original position, but letting others stand as "real" values (which then get amped up by considering the original position), so this seems to mostly serve as a reductio against trying to justify aggregative moral intuitions via the original position (this being said from the perspective of a metaethics where we honor intuitions about what we should strive for, and where explicit metaethical reasoning impinges on those intuitions only indirectly). <br /><br />In particular, it seems incongruous to say that my desire for aggregate happiness comes from considering the original position while my desire for average happiness is some more direct kind of altruism (particularly if we then go on to say that the original position doesn't actually justify aggregative intuitions). Before bringing up average happiness the argument felt more plausible applied to aesthetic/scientific progress etc., but now it seems objectionable everywhere.Paul Christianohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09161849602388308455noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-6540578507752650102012-07-17T18:19:14.675-04:002012-07-17T18:19:14.675-04:00This is a good and interesting point.This is a good and interesting point.Robin Hansonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18396528456436940972noreply@blogger.com