Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/3/8 Jack Mallah <[email protected]> wrote: > >> It's not the addition then loss that's bad (since you end up with the same >> measure you started with); it's the loss. >> >> In the culling teleportation, both people are lost, which is doubly bad. >> Elsewhere, one new person appears, which is good, but not as good as there >> being two people. So it's not a wash; it's a loss. > > It's a loss that makes no difference to either of the two people that > vanish, since both will feel that they have survived. This is not to > say that the loss does not matter in any sense; for example, as a > result there will be only half as many hands to chop wood. But the > loss makes no difference to personal survival, which is what we are > discussing here. > >>> I don't agree with the way you calculate utility at all. >> It's easy to say you don't agree but you haven't given an alternative. >> Precisely how would you calculate it? U = ... > > U = (Sum_i M_i Q_i) / (Sum_i M_i), as Wei Dai wrote. I don't > understand your objection that this is less well defined than U = > Sum_i M_i Q_i, since the variables are exactly the same in each case. > However, stating a formula is simply another way of stating an > opinion. The crux of the matter is that if neither I nor my copies > will feel any different as a result of being culled, then being culled > does not matter. It could be that my measure is being regularly halved > every Tuesday and Thursday, and I have no way of knowing and no reason > to care as long as it doesn't go to zero. > >
And if it went to zero you certainly wouldn't know and wouldn't care. Brent --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
