Calculating Utility

A Measure of States of the Universe

Utility is the quantity that is to be maximized in Utilitarianism. Often people think of utility as “Happiness” or “Pleasure”, but compared to the common folk definitions of these things, Utility is a somewhat distinct concept.

Utility can be thought of as the quantification of Goodness. Any action or item has a utility if it is measurably good. So any understanding of utility requires an understanding of what is “Good”.

Good is a binary concept. Things are either good or evil (or possibly neutral). Something is good if it contributes to the production of the ultimate value of all sentient beings. The ultimate value for an individual sentient being is their state of mind. It is specifically, the state of mind in which its mental state is a maximally positive conscious experience. We often refer to this positive conscious experience as happiness or pleasure.

Why is the ultimate value a state of mind specifically, rather than just any state of the universe? Can’t we value a particular state of the universe apart from how it affects our state of mind? The reason why we specifically value a state of mind is because our state of mind is the only thing we can know for certain as truth. You know if you are happy or sad because you experience it directly. You experience the rest of the universe only indirectly through your senses. Thus, you cannot know for certain what the actual state of the universe is. You can only know a mental model of the universe that is constructed by your senses and information processing.

Furthermore, if our ultimate values depended on specific states of the universe outside our minds, then it could be the case that there might not be an optimum state of the universe for all sentient beings. This could happen if two such beings valued intrinsically incompatible states of the universe. For instance, one being might value that the universe be in a state of maximum entropy, while another might value that the universe be in a state of minimum entropy. But it is possible theoretically to create a state of the universe in which all minds achieve maximum positive conscious experience, because one sentient being’s mental model is not directly dependent on any other. The independence of minds allows for this optimization to occur.

However, utility does not quite map directly onto happiness or pleasure, because of the momentary saturation limit of happiness and pleasure. At any given moment, any sentient being bound by the laws of physics can only process information at a certain rate. As such, there is an intrinsic upper bound on the happiness or pleasure that a sentient being can experience at any given moment in time.

Note that this has an interesting implication for comparing across different sentient beings. Larger brains appear to have higher information processing capacity or bandwidth, and therefore can experience more positive conscious experiences per moment in time than smaller, less developed brains. This arguably justifies weighing sentience accordingly.

Utility then is a measure or quantification of states of the universe, and in particular mental states, with regards to the extent to which they will produce positive conscious experiences across all sentient beings. Ideally, there is an optimal state and a continuous series of less optimal states that are still better than the currently existing state.

We can see then how good and evil map onto utility. Something is good if it improves the current state of the universe in the direction of the optimal. Something is evil if it moves the current state of the universe in the direction of the polar opposite. We could call the ideal optimal state, “Universal Heaven”, and its polar opposite, “Universal Hell”. Maximizing utility then would create the conditions for universal heaven.

But how would one go about actually calculating utility for a given state of the universe? Let’s assume that we’re trying to calculate the right course of action in some real world scenario.

Let H represent the following:

Let the H of the current state of the universe remaining the exact same = 0.
Let the H of future possible states of the universe range as real values from 1 to -1.
An H of 1 is a future possible state that guarantees universal heaven.
An H of -1 is a future possible state that guarantees universal hell.

Let B represent the following:

Let the B of the current state of the universe remaining the exact same = 0.
Let the B of future possible states of the universe range as real values >= 0.

Let D represent the following:

Let the D of the current state of the universe remaining the exact same = 0.
Let the D of future possible states of the universe range as real values <= 0.

U = HB/D

The utility of qualia is the amount of Energy (Joules) that a subject would be willing to exert in order to experience, or in the negative case, avoid experiencing a particular quale.

Because we are limited by our brains and bodies and so tend to exert a regular and consistent amount of energy over time, this can reasonably be approximated in units of Time (Seconds) that the subject would be willing to spend in order to experience, or in the negative case, avoid experiencing a particular quale.

Page last modified on February 04, 2018, at 06:47 PM
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