No, his definition of utility is different from yours. Or rather, he is not using “utility” in any technical sense, just as an abstracted “amount of goodness”. I am not sure of this, since I cannot read John Baez’s mind, but my experience talking to people who are not regulars on LW is that this is what is generally meant when people say the word utility.
Hmm. On further reflection, I now think I was wrong. Maybe Baez translates “utility” as something like “disability-adjusted life years saved.” And then he has a nonlinear function from DALYs saved to utility-in-the-technical-sense. Voila, risk aversion (for gambles on DALYs) makes sense.
I assume this is another way of saying that he rejects the Von Neumann-Morgenstern axioms?
No, his definition of utility is different from yours. Or rather, he is not using “utility” in any technical sense, just as an abstracted “amount of goodness”. I am not sure of this, since I cannot read John Baez’s mind, but my experience talking to people who are not regulars on LW is that this is what is generally meant when people say the word utility.
His definition of utility may well be different, as you say. But denial of the vN-M axioms is implied, even if not equivalent.
Can you elaborate? I don’t understand in what sense it is implied.
Hmm. On further reflection, I now think I was wrong. Maybe Baez translates “utility” as something like “disability-adjusted life years saved.” And then he has a nonlinear function from DALYs saved to utility-in-the-technical-sense. Voila, risk aversion (for gambles on DALYs) makes sense.
This is roughly what I was thinking, though you have expressed it much more clearly than I did.