It is true that our intuition prefers A to B, but it is also true that our intuition evolved in an environment where people can’t be copied at all, so it is not clear how much we should trust it in this kind of scenario.
Suppose Omega adds that somebody else with more money is running another 50 copies of our universe, and the continuation of those 50 copies is assured. Now doesn’t it look more reasonable to be indifferent between A and B?
If Omega informs us of no such thing, what of it? Once we start having this kind of conversation, we are entitled to talk about all copies of our universe that exist anywhere in the Tegmark multiverse. Clearly, at least some of them will continue.
Have I bitten an unpalatably large bullet? To test that, consider option C: “Oh, don’t worry about it, just turn off all the servers and go have a good time with the money.” If we find our indifference extending across all three options, it’s time to reject the train of thought by reductio ad absurdum. (Similar rejection would apply on a more practical scale to an argument that suggests quantum suicide is a good way to win the lottery.)
Fortunately that doesn’t happen here: we still prefer both A and B to C. So I conclude that indifference between A and B is counterintuitive but not wrong.
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.
It is true that our intuition prefers A to B, but it is also true that our intuition evolved in an environment where people can’t be copied at all, so it is not clear how much we should trust it in this kind of scenario.
Suppose Omega adds that somebody else with more money is running another 50 copies of our universe, and the continuation of those 50 copies is assured. Now doesn’t it look more reasonable to be indifferent between A and B?
If Omega informs us of no such thing, what of it? Once we start having this kind of conversation, we are entitled to talk about all copies of our universe that exist anywhere in the Tegmark multiverse. Clearly, at least some of them will continue.
Have I bitten an unpalatably large bullet? To test that, consider option C: “Oh, don’t worry about it, just turn off all the servers and go have a good time with the money.” If we find our indifference extending across all three options, it’s time to reject the train of thought by reductio ad absurdum. (Similar rejection would apply on a more practical scale to an argument that suggests quantum suicide is a good way to win the lottery.)
Fortunately that doesn’t happen here: we still prefer both A and B to C. So I conclude that indifference between A and B is counterintuitive but not wrong.
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.