I don’t see what difference it makes if there are 50 copies of the universe or 1 copy, but I care a whole bunch if there are 1 copy or no copies. From the perspective of aesthetics, it seems like an unfair way to get infinite utility out of crappy universes to aggregate the utility of net positive utility universes in even a sub-linear fashion[1]. Having to deal with different sizes or densities of infinity because of arbitrarily defined* aggregating values of copies seems very inelegant to me.
*Even linear aggregation seems arbitrary to me, because this places absolutely no value in diversity of experience, which I and probably everyone else considers a terminal value. (E.g., if three equal-utility people are the same, and two are identical copies, I am baffled by any decision theory that decides, all else being equal, that the same mind simply multiplied by 2 is twice as important as an un-copied mind. It’s like saying that 2 copies of a book are twice as important as 1 copy of another book (that is of equal utility yada yada), because… because. More information is just very important to humans, both instrumentally and intrinsically.)
I fully admit that I am arguing from a combination of intuition and aesthetics, but I’m not sure what else you could argue from in this case.
[1] Added: I just realized you could probably renormalize the equations by dividing out the infinities and using infinite set density instead of infinite sets of utility. At any rate, my argument remains unchanged.
I don’t see what difference it makes if there are 50 copies of the universe or 1 copy, but I care a whole bunch if there are 1 copy or no copies. From the perspective of aesthetics, it seems like an unfair way to get infinite utility out of crappy universes to aggregate the utility of net positive utility universes in even a sub-linear fashion[1]. Having to deal with different sizes or densities of infinity because of arbitrarily defined* aggregating values of copies seems very inelegant to me.
*Even linear aggregation seems arbitrary to me, because this places absolutely no value in diversity of experience, which I and probably everyone else considers a terminal value. (E.g., if three equal-utility people are the same, and two are identical copies, I am baffled by any decision theory that decides, all else being equal, that the same mind simply multiplied by 2 is twice as important as an un-copied mind. It’s like saying that 2 copies of a book are twice as important as 1 copy of another book (that is of equal utility yada yada), because… because. More information is just very important to humans, both instrumentally and intrinsically.)
I fully admit that I am arguing from a combination of intuition and aesthetics, but I’m not sure what else you could argue from in this case.
[1] Added: I just realized you could probably renormalize the equations by dividing out the infinities and using infinite set density instead of infinite sets of utility. At any rate, my argument remains unchanged.