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On infinite ethics

handsandcities.com

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Re: On infinite ethics

#21

Post by 3np »

kubanczyk wrote: post #15
3np wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did not finish reading either yet, but is this not addressed (without explicitly addressing your work) early on in the article? As I read their reasoning, even if the by far most likely outcome is that your conclusion holds in practice, there is a non-zero probability that assumptions are wrong in a way that allows for infinite causality, and therefore (by assuming their infinite-fanatical stance), attempting that is…

If you want to use the concept of "probability" to deal with reality , you better decide first if the reality offers infinite payoff/risk. If it does, your tool (the naive probability) is inadequate and quite easily broken, as you just have demonstrated. The tool will sway to 100% and back to 0% on like a broken compass, depending on which infinities you thought about this very minute.

Good point - it should follow that given assumption that with infinitesimal probability of infinite payoff, there is also a corresponding non-zero probability of infinite risk.

Overall I think OP is mostly about them struggling to reduce hypothetical outcomes involving infinities to real numbers in order to be able to rank them. For example:

> Agent-neutrality: If there is a welfare-preserving bijection from the agents in w1 to the agents in w2, then w1 and w2 are equally good. > By “welfare-preserving bijection,” I mean a mapping that pairs each agent in w1 with a single agent in w2, and each agent in w2 with a single agent in w1, such that both members of each pair have the same welfare level.

They then proceed to compare a w1 with a 1/0 of 1:1 vs w2 with a 1:3 ratio, "skipping" 2/3 of 0s in w2, claiming a contradiction. So they're really doing a injective non-surjective mapping, not a bijective one, and them being infinite doesn't really absolve that. I think they could get some insight from algorithmic analysis and limits. Just like (probably sloppy notation here) O(0.25n) is faster than O(0.5n) even if both are O(0.5n).

Re: On infinite ethics

#22

Post by coldtea »

wellpast wrote: post #16
nonrandomstring wrote: post #10

This formidable essay is beautiful and pure Kierkegaardian tragedy at the same time. I feel how much the author wants to extend kindness to the infinite. Yet we live in a world so atomised and self-objectified that most of us fail to apply ethics to a few loved ones, to even one person, ourselves. Real ethics is finite, embodied, pragmatic, messy. It's the shit, piss, blood and mud of battlefields, caring for the old…

What a punch! > This is why we invented religions, and will continue to reinvent them in ever shifting guises. Something off about this statement, though. Like out of place in some otherwise wise observations. Man has our escapism but it isn't at all uniquely circumscribed by "religion". Unless you define, circularly, "religion" to be man's escapism. I'm trying to avoid some apologetics over some theology or somethin…

>Something off about this statement, though. Like out of place in some otherwise wise observations. Man has our escapism but it isn't at all uniquely circumscribed by "religion". Unless you define, circularly, "religion" to be man's escapism.

Exactly. Few things have been more pragmatic, and with more practical impact in history (both good and bad), than religion. The "fairy tale" part of it is just a distraction to the actual symbolic content.

Re: On infinite ethics

#23

Post by janto »

CJefferson wrote: post #13

Near the start a discussion of if you should go on holiday, or save a life. Except there will be an infinite number of slightly different universes where, by going on holiday, you are given the opportunity to save a life. There will also be an infinite number of universes where your donation ends up causing the end of the world. Once you consider every possible world and every possible outcome, happening infinitely m…

This also applies to a single universe where an action might have many unintended consequences, possibly snowballing into exactly the opposite from what you would have wanted. In this sense, each of your decisions are important and you are responsible for everything.

So in such a dynamical system, how do you then act? The philosophically Western answer to this is in part through Logos. You treat the spoken and written word as divine, through truthful and authentic expression of the individual, as clearly as possible. The consequences of how this unfolds is outside your immediate control, as it should be.

Love has an important role here, but Love without Truth seems to be the prevailing attitude online, which is declared as a personal virtue and experienced as righteous indignation. This is to me what others perceive as the fall of the West: the prioritization of Love over Truth.

Re: On infinite ethics

#24

Post by unholiness »

While the essay eventually explores some interesting topics, the opening statements claiming there are explanations from physics that connect these infinities to our actual universe were fairly ameteurish and misleading.

The many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, for instance, provides clear math on how to reason about quantities as the universe splits into more universes: we integrate after multiplying by the probability of each branch. No credible physical theory is proposing we double the amount of mass and energy in the universe whenever we measure the spin of an electron.

Calling that split universe "two universes" instead of "two half-universes" is fine for a casual explanation, but if you want to do correct math with this result, you need to start with the correct math too! Once you make that adjustment, all this talk in about "finite benefits don't matter compared to infinite benefits" can be translated as "benefits with probability zero don't matter compared to benefits with non-zero probability". Much more palatable.

There are still interesting conversations about benefits which could last for infinite time. But there, the crux is in the "could". These thought experiments always bake in assumptions at dozens of levels which say "this factor in my model will last for infinite time". When you consider in our ignorance about what the future will hold, I've yet to see a convincing example where we could truly consider a finite action as having infinite utility. I'm certainly open to it, I just haven't seen it.

Re: On infinite ethics

#25

Post by penteract »

3np wrote: post #21
kubanczyk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to use the concept of "probability" to deal with reality , you better decide first if the reality offers infinite payoff/risk. If it does, your tool (the naive probability) is inadequate and quite easily broken, as you just have demonstrated. The tool will sway to 100% and back to 0% on like a broken compass, depending on which infinities you thought about this very minute.

Good point - it should follow that given assumption that with infinitesimal probability of infinite payoff, there is also a corresponding non-zero probability of infinite risk. Overall I think OP is mostly about them struggling to reduce hypothetical outcomes involving infinities to real numbers in order to be able to rank them. For example: > Agent-neutrality: If there is a welfare-preserving bijection from the agen…

> They then proceed to compare a w1 with a 1/0 of 1:1 vs w2 with a 1:3 ratio, "skipping" 2/3 of 0s in w2, claiming a contradiction. So they're really doing a injective non-surjective mapping, not a bijective one.

There is in fact a bijection between indices that maps the sequences to each other -

  index: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ...
  w1:    1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 ...
  w2:    1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 ...
bijective map such that w2(f(i))=w1(i) :

  f(n) = if (n is even) then n*2 else floor((n*2+1)/3)
  f_inverse(n) = if (n is a multiple of 4) then n/2 else floor((n*3)/4)*2+1

Re: On infinite ethics

#26

Post by nonrandomstring »

wellpast wrote: post #16
nonrandomstring wrote: post #10

This formidable essay is beautiful and pure Kierkegaardian tragedy at the same time. I feel how much the author wants to extend kindness to the infinite. Yet we live in a world so atomised and self-objectified that most of us fail to apply ethics to a few loved ones, to even one person, ourselves. Real ethics is finite, embodied, pragmatic, messy. It's the shit, piss, blood and mud of battlefields, caring for the old…

What a punch! > This is why we invented religions, and will continue to reinvent them in ever shifting guises. Something off about this statement, though. Like out of place in some otherwise wise observations. Man has our escapism but it isn't at all uniquely circumscribed by "religion". Unless you define, circularly, "religion" to be man's escapism. I'm trying to avoid some apologetics over some theology or somethin…

Sorry if I sounded dismissive in using the word "escapism". I did not mean it in a bad way. We all need an escape, and will get it one day. Years of suffering dogma as a secular humanist returned me to some kind of faith. Against the grain I take my kid to church. She likes the songs. I haven't given up on religion. There's no "just" in being good, We all need help with that.

Re: On infinite ethics

#27

Post by aspenmayer »

davidmanheim wrote: post #7
aspenmayer wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not familiar with this field. Did you reach out to them directly to see if they are aware of your work and those who you cite?

I've spoken with at least half the people they thanked for input, and several of the people cited.

We’re those conversations one-sided? What did they say about your research?
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