Then would you agree that any utility function should, in the end, maximize hedons (if we were rational agents, that is) ? If yes, that would mean that hedons are the goal and utilons are a tool, a sub-goal, which doesn’t seem to be what OP was saying.
Florent_Berthet
Karma: 58
Translator of the articles here.
I actually pondered the two options at the very beginning of my work, and both seem equally good to me. “Face à la singularité” means something like “In front of the singularity” while “Faire face à la singularité” is closer indeed to “Facing the Singularity”. But the first one sounds better in french (and is catchier), that’s why I chose it. It is a little less action oriented but it doesn’t necessarily imply passivity.
It wouldn’t bother me to take the second option though, it’s a close choice. Maybe other french speakers could give their opinion?
About the capitalized “S” of “Singularity”, it’s also a matter of preference, I put it to emphasize that we are not talking about any type of singularity (not a mathematical one for example), but it could go either way too. (I just checked the wikipedia french page for “technical singularity”, and it’s written with a capitalized “S” about 50% of the time...)
Other remarks are welcomed.
“Affronter la Singularité” is a good suggestion but like you said it’s a bit aggressive. I wish we had a better word for “Facing” but I don’t think the french language has one.
I’d gladly review your translation, check your email.
Has anybody ever proposed a way to value utilons?
It would be easier to discuss about them if we knew exactly what they can mean, that is, in a more precise way than just by the “unit of utility” definition. For example, how to handle them through time?
So why not defining them with something like that :
Suppose we could precisely measure the level of instant happiness of a person on a linear scale between 1 to 10, with 1 being the worst pain imaginable and 10 the best of climaxes. This level is constantly varying, for everybody. In this context, one utilon could be the value of an action that is increasing the level of happiness of a person by one, on this scale, during one hour.
Then, for example, if you help an old lady to cross the road, making her a bit happier during the next hour (let’s say she would have been around 6⁄10 happy but thanks to you she will be 6,5⁄10 happy during this hour), then your action has a utility of one half of a utilon. You just created 0.5 utilon, and it’s a definitely valid statement, isn’t that great?
Using that, a hedon is nothing more than a utilon that we create by raising our own happiness.