Let’s call your utility function “UTILITY”. We assume it takes a state of the universe as an argument.
My utility function takes the entire history of the universe as an argument (past and future). You could call that a “state” but in that context I’d need a clearer definition of:
“the present situation”
“I am able to change the universe to any state I choose”
The utility function is a mathematical function. It simply evaluates whatever hypothetical universe-history you feed it.
The question of where the agent gets its expected future-universe-history from is more interesting though, and it’s something you’re right to be sceptical about. Here we’re talking about bounded rationality and all sorts of wonderful things beyond the scope of the original post (also for the purposes of discussion I’m pretending to be something more closely resembling an expected-utility-maximizer than what I actually am).
They’re called physics, and probability theory. And, for that matter, history—teaches you to compute the probability that Queen Whatsherface will be assassinated given that the LHC doesn’t work and you had juice for breakfast.
My utility function takes the entire history of the universe as an argument (past and future). You could call that a “state” but in that context I’d need a clearer definition of:
“the present situation”
“I am able to change the universe to any state I choose”
Bullshit it does. How does it even get access to the entire history of the universe? :)
The utility function is a mathematical function. It simply evaluates whatever hypothetical universe-history you feed it.
The question of where the agent gets its expected future-universe-history from is more interesting though, and it’s something you’re right to be sceptical about. Here we’re talking about bounded rationality and all sorts of wonderful things beyond the scope of the original post (also for the purposes of discussion I’m pretending to be something more closely resembling an expected-utility-maximizer than what I actually am).
History books.
Yeah, there’s uncertainty over it, but it’s not harder than regular expected utility.
Emphasis mine. I know I went to public school, but I do not recall any future-history lessons :)
They’re called physics, and probability theory. And, for that matter, history—teaches you to compute the probability that Queen Whatsherface will be assassinated given that the LHC doesn’t work and you had juice for breakfast.