tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post3154365016996437218..comments2023-10-29T10:32:36.914-04:00Comments on Philosophy, et cetera: Gambling Life for ImmortalityRichard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-26324531661257999322008-12-27T16:53:00.000-05:002008-12-27T16:53:00.000-05:00The core issue is better illustrated if we tailor ...The core issue is better illustrated if we tailor the thought experiment to control for such confounding variables. (E.g. assume good health in either case, and in the case of extra longevity suppose your biological "age" is whatever you prefer -- it needn't be constant.) The real issue is whether twice as many good years are thereby twice as good for you.Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-2620615055224129032008-12-25T14:05:00.000-05:002008-12-25T14:05:00.000-05:00An interesting side issue that doesn't seem to hav...An interesting side issue that doesn't seem to have been discussed is that dualism is false. To me, this represents a tradeoff.<BR/><BR/>One the one hand, living forever means never suffering the unpleasant side effects of getting old; reductio ad absurdum: instead of dying with probability (1-p), you enter a persistant vegetative state. Same difference.<BR/><BR/>On the other hand, some of the hormonally driven changes in my life have been pleasant, or at least I have judged them to be beneficial in retrospect. I have to imagine that in the future, there may be more such changes. An infinitely long life at my current age would rob me of such changes (and hence decrease the potential diversity of my experiences).Theodore Nordsieckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06914221789495374112noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-85095743718545821892008-12-24T20:36:00.000-05:002008-12-24T20:36:00.000-05:00Just as well I wasn't arguing that "utility decrea...Just as well I wasn't arguing that "utility decreases with time", then!Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-18065913461456943492008-12-24T20:25:00.000-05:002008-12-24T20:25:00.000-05:00Even if utility decreases with time, there's no re...Even if utility decreases with time, there's no reason to think it's a converging series like 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8...<BR/><BR/>If the decrease is more like 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/4... then the sum of future utility is still infinite, despite the decrease.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03638856877702739374noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-10372346124680943042008-12-24T19:06:00.000-05:002008-12-24T19:06:00.000-05:00No, I don't think it's a fundamental principle tha...No, I don't think it's a fundamental principle that additional life-time has decreasing marginal utility. As explained in the post, it depends on what one wants out of life and how long is necessary to achieve it. It's entirely possible that on smaller scales the weighting would reverse -- e.g. an extra twenty years might be more than twenty times as valuable to me as an extra one year (if that would enable such important goods as raising a family, etc.), in which case I would take <I>that</I> particular gamble at unfavourable (p<1/20) odds.<BR/><BR/>(That's a helpful clarification, actually, since it establishes that it isn't just a matter of time discounting.)Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-15354645275104522222008-12-24T18:12:00.000-05:002008-12-24T18:12:00.000-05:00Are you prepared to go all the way? Would you ref...Are you prepared to go all the way? Would you refuse to gamble any arbitrarily small period of time for twice that period at "moderately favourable odds"?Pablohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10363127923767597327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-67760815076371949462008-12-24T17:39:00.000-05:002008-12-24T17:39:00.000-05:00I don't think "large numbers" play any essential r...I don't think "large numbers" play any essential role here. We can consider a more modest gamble: risking instant death for 80 more years of life, or guaranteed 40 years more life. These are numbers we can all grasp perfectly well. And the latter option is (I think) obviously better than a gamble at p = .5, or even moderately favourable odds.Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-11989996155712622008-12-24T17:20:00.000-05:002008-12-24T17:20:00.000-05:00A. My value for p is arbitrarily noninfinitesimall...A. My value for p is arbitrarily noninfinitesimally small. Notice, however, that Caplan's scenario may be metaphysically impossible if we understand 'living forever' as 'living an infinite number of years', since it is unclear (to me, at least) whether actual infinities can exist at all.<BR/><BR/>B. I'd like to think is the same as my present value.<BR/><BR/>Like pretty much everybody else, Caplan feels uneasy about accepting a very low value for p. But this feeling should not be accorded evidential weight, since it trades on intuitions about large numbers, which are generally unreliable. On this, see John Broome's characteristically perceptive <A HREF="http://www.stafforini.com/quotes/?p=647" REL="nofollow">remarks</A>.Pablohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10363127923767597327noreply@blogger.com