agree

David is a bit too cynical,imo.

Just answer the hypothetical.

I don't think everyone's making that assumption. I, for instance, am not.

I doubt that too many utilitarians believe that people act much like utilitarians.

Well it is not 0% to this human because of deeper considerations that must be examined first. And it certainly is not 0% to you too if i give you a dice and gun with 1 bullet in it and invite you to play the game so that a random person in the world wont die. Wanna bet it becomes very important then?

Maybe. But that would just mean I picked a bad number to make my point. Which is once the chances seemed real enough to themselves almost all would allow him to die.

(I should add that I am skeptical that people can't process 2%. Surely those who are afraid they will be killed by a terrorist realize their chances of that is far slimmer.)

That would dilute your point sufficiently to make it not really much of a point.

(My real point is that math has got little to do with it.)

And yet math should always have to do a lot with it. Whatever that "it" is.

are you arguing the absolute point or the line?

1. people play cooperation (save him) if it favors them and revert to competition (save yourself) when risk is to great....

2. Most ppl set that line at very low number (eq. 2%)

Did you calculate what to have for lunch?

"1." Is incorrect. People play cooperation if the heuristic they are operating under tells them to. People on the Titanic operated in a quite unexpected way by your model.

To make this point relevant to the current refugee situation, you would need to show that those who are irrationally afraid of terrorism believe prohibiting refugees will lead to their certain death. Most islamaphobes I've heard claim the refugees could simply stay in neighboring countries instead of passing through into the West. So it's less like certain death for our poor skallywag and more like letting him stay afloat on a piece of wreckage.

Personally, I think we should take most of them, even granting a small chance a few terrorists slip through. The more muslims who enter western countries the more good will is fostered, and as they are exposed to western values they can help secularize the rest of the Islamic world.

Thats why i said "should". You better believe it that if you sit down and calculate a way for a human to have a well balanced well prepared meal every day they will be happier for it than they are right now always randomly eating and never fully experiencing all the possibilities/variety, the nutrients they need or the maximization of their pleasure and well being. Most certainly to eliminate poverty in any society so that we wont be the lucky that had lunch, some calculations will be needed.

Lol, I have an app on my phone to enter all my food intake and exercise and it helps calculate a healthy lifestyle. I used it every day for about six months, and it helped, but now I can pretty much do it all in my head.

What Brian meant was that not everything involves math in life (beyond math that controls the physical laws of course).

Will you need math for running a bike, jumping a rope or talking? Of course not.

I also like the way you argue for that eating should involve math somehow.

Lets look at just a few of your statements, here they are in short form:

Good calculated meal => happiness
Good calculated meal => more variety and possibilities
Good calculated meal => maximise pleasure and well being (and nutritions)

First of all, doing calculations takes time and energy, and not everyone has the math skills to calculate this stuff. Some work long hours or travel all the time. And few would ever want Brian at their door everyday to calculate it for them. The periods i have done calculations on my food program i have found it time consuming and not rewarding, I chose to not do it anymore.

The link between doing a calculated meal everyday and happiness is not something i was aware of. When i did calculations in Excel everyday it drained my time and i wont have it, its not for me. But maybe i should return if i get more happyness right, weird thing i couldnt feel it at the time.

I also have problems seeing the link between variety and possibilities and doing calculations on a meal. Is it much harder to vary your food if you dont do math? My parents do all sorts of food and they dont do math. Also true for my grandmother. Its actually true for quite alot of people i know and probably none of them do math. The other way is also interresting. There is no problem for a person to gain all the body needs in a math calculated way everyday without doing much variety in the food sources. How varied you are doesnt have anything to do with you doing well balanced math calculated meals or not.

Maximize pleasure and well being, thats a nice point you have right there. Maybe this calculated food things is something that should be concidered at a spa studio? Well, i dont think i need to say much here but i have felt more wellbeing from other things than having a calculated meal. You use big words for small things.

Nutrition? I just checked what the health authoritites in my country says about this and it says that malnutrition is only an issue for people with some sort of dysfunction, alcoholics and a few other groups in society. This is a small minority. The rest of the people in the population doesnt need the same guidelines as these people. I dont even think doing calculations is necessary to correct common forms of malnutrition. If the doctor find that i lack vitamin E i will take a supplement or drink a spoon of Fish oil every day.

I think the obvious thing to say is that clearly there is little to gain from changing your routines and doing math everyday for most people, although there still will be some very few people in society that will benefit from this - but the benefits are not necessarily the ones you have talked about. A person who is trying to bodybuild i think will clearly benefit from doing math on his food, but im not so sure it will make him happier (apart from better results happyness).

I had a sandwich of leftover roast beef with a very nice horseradish sauce followed by some raw veggies and blue cheese.

No math was done to arrive at the lunch.

The latest diet has you snacking on nothing but tasty equations.


PairTheBoard

Yeah, but it's just an unheathy fad. Studies have shown our bodies can produce their own equations but require essential nutrients like observation and facts and stuff created in nature.

Very funny guys. In other news people starting to realize all the life they have going currently depends (while they think math has nothing or little to do with it) on sensitive models that sustain the system from collapsing for now but not for long as they are not very well thought (or always there)...Lets see how expensive or impossible to find your food becomes without that math and science behind the process.

Or lets see if with better models we can run the planet to produce more food, waste less and feed all the people with what they need while having a net positive impact on the environment too.

Not having math in it pretty soon will make possible that "it" to not exist by the way from a number of existential risks we ignore currently and would require some modeling to recognize.

If you study how a woman's pleasure in enhanced during sex from a scientific perspective you may even become a better lover. Any greater appreciation of any process can benefit from mathematically studying it. That doesnt mean you will have a super computer telling you what part and how to touch next or how to manipulate your own motions and thoughts to sustain a longer period of sex enabling her orgasm to happen slightly before or at the same time as yours instead of the whole faking joke and mismatch game. Its not about being nerd in a way that messes the natural process, its about being more natural than ever before, (without leaving a hint that there is anything analytical about it behind the scenes) but in a way that is impressive to her because everything is well thought before even if not by your brain. You will know what i mean one day when even this becomes possible.

On yet other news computers will beat humans in poker not by developing better game theory plays where possible or even solving the entire thing but by being able to read their biometric data changes in real time and essentially "read" them better than ever or manipulate them (talk to them etc) to produce body reaction hints nobody else would be able to see they come with their own slight tells (or by studying the extended game statistics so far available).

If you wanted to see my point you would have realized what i meant but sadly you dont want to. Maybe use some math education memories here to see if there is a chance to be a little bit more imaginative. You know think outside the box, better illustrated by how many problems are solved that way.

Any AI that does elaborate things by the way (walking, riding a bike, having sex etc) will depend on math to do them so its not like what i said doesnt have any literal direct place either. It will have a significant need for it. All higher complexity that is efficient will need some math all the time. It may even need math to simulate human "emotions" and empathize better than any human could in a situation and certainly to decide taking more things in mind faster than ever before. And its not like who we naturally are in our original most seemingly unpredictable state is not having some mathematical logic to it. Who we are as humans (the human condition) is a long term convergence and exploration game of probability and time. It is entirely mathematical afterall.

FoldNDark's initial reply seems the most apt. The circumstances of the lifeboat and the 21st person would swamp any "rational" thinking. Why are they in a lifeboat? Where is everybody else? Is number 21 the only one in sight or if they allow 21 to climb aboard will they be rushed by dozens of others? How did the 20 get in the lifeboat before number 21? Was there a lottery? Was there a footrace? Is number 21 a woman? Is 21 pretty/handsome? Etc. Etc. Etc. Justice, fairness, and morality do not exist in a vacuum.

Besides those overarching issues, humans are notoriously bad at understanding probabilities. They cannot grok 2% (or 98%). Who tells them about the 2%? How will allowing number 21 on board adversely affect their survival? Sounds like a concocted story that nobody will take seriously.

If OP is really looking for answers just based upon what was provided, I would guess that nearly 100% would vote for allowing number 21 into the boat in any public or secret balloting.

This is because adding a 21st person in a lifeboat never reduces the survival probability in a known way or even at all actually. It may even elevate it. But the important thing is that it can start from a lower than 100% number. And when this is the case you are fighting to survive and the other person can fight together with you why not.

A lifeboat situation may have 50% chance to make it and be spotted fast enough or 70% whatever. But its not 100% in many bad looking cases. Another human may spot better a risk or a solution or help fix something etc. You never know. You must operate as if the extra person will try to help things not make them worse even if idiots do that instead (because it is the rational choice to cooperate in crisis).

Or it is 99.99% in some easy cases near a coast when the weather is great and people know you are in trouble and its a matter of time. So imagine not helping someone who may die of hypothermia otherwise in such easy cases. How horrible.

In even more dangerous cases to pick up a 21st person will reduce your water and food rations by 1/21? So big deal. Nobody died because of such reduction.

It will never increase the weight risk more than the random fluctuation of 20 people already does more or less. 20^(1/2)*20~90 kgr say (or a bit over the weight of an extra person). And if the ship is already at trouble level then it will fail anyway with even the 20 in a bit of weather and people will be forced to take shifts swimming along with it connected to help reduce the risk of sinking assuming no shark risks (and even then its better than shark risk for all with a lost lifeboat).

It is possible even the extra person can help them catch a fish or think a trick or something.

So in real life case with unknown risk (eg a fire situation i gave as example) many people will help others if it is that easy to do it. And if its harder some will still help and others will applaud them for doing it probably more often than not. Nobody is then estimating probabilities of such choices because its too chaotic and not optimal as priority for your brain lol.


But i did give an example of exactly 2% risk for all the others too (group risk not individual independent risk) where it is known in some spaceship situation in orbit window terms that can be exactly quantified as such if a maneuver is introduced to achieve saving in a rendez vous an astronaut and risk all other 20 then (or 5 or whatever number applies).

There will come a point that the number is exact and the discussion has merit and we need to investigate more carefully if saving N with 100% and losing 1 with 100% is better sometimes than losing N+1 with (1-p) even if (N+1)*p<1.

So why let the fact that realistic cases are hard to find (but they exist) prevent us from trying to see if saving the other is always the rational most ethical choice. I want to think this further and understand the ramifications every time you vote in a way that risks yourself but also a group of others even if the intuitive first thing in a fuzzy fluid crisis is to help.


Also the more you rise the probability p the less sensible that will become in real cases. Even in fuzzy cases with no clear risk putting in danger many people with some uncertainty may be the wrong choice if the uncertainty error is significant. What you thought as 2% risk may be 2% with 5% sd etc.

This is why we can only discuss clean cases here where the numbers are known. It is only then by the way possible to conduct a voting since in all other volatile situations its ridiculous. So why let a technicality avoid the main issue?

Why dont we make it even more interesting by raising p to 4%.

4%*21=0.84<1 so even basic naive EV applies. Is it the ethical thing at 4% to risk all 20 though?

Consider also another analytical problem to illustrate my point.

Imagine a society that operates in such a way that the good people in it affect the total utility of that world by a function that is nonlinear in their number.

What this means is that if you have n good people they may cooperate with each other in any possible multimember groups (by 2, 3 etc) that each enhances the effect to the community more than if each one worked alone.

Good people also have great ideas and positively influence with them other great people that build on it even if they do not cooperate or even if they compete. So what competition do you have with 2 great minds and what you have with 3 or 4? With 3 the possibilities and individual stress to win becomes stronger. With just one there is no stress at all other than personal ambitions/self discipline and projects.

So it is plausible indeed that the utility of good people in a society is a nonlinear function of their number.


Why is that important now?

Because risking all 21 opens the door for losing 2 or 3 or 4 etc good people at once. A group of 20 has a chance to have 1,2,3,4 all 20 great people and a random person has only room for 1.

So you need to calculate the effect on overall equity of all these possibilities.

You cannot separate people that simplistically to good and bad in general because its not accurate or objective (knowable) often but in reality on many special things such distinction will exist often to noticeable degrees. So its not entirely unreasonable either even if not politically correct to think that way openly.

When you lose one "good" person the utility becomes U(N-1) for some big N of the population of the "community" (outside the 20, N>20 say ). When you lose k U(N-k) etc.

When you lose 1 with p1, 2 with p2, 3 with p3 etc k with pk the expected utility goes to ;

p1*U(N-1)+p2*U(N-2)+...Pk*U(N-k)


If the frequency of good people in a population is r then in 21 people pk is ;

pk=21!/k!(21-k)!*r^k*(1-r)^(21-k)

Can you see now why it may be possible to have for some risk probability p of all 21 lost and nonlinear function U(N) in the good people N of a system and some high enough r (say 20% of people are really good) to have every time the "lifeboat" has n ;

p*(p1*U(N-1)+p2*U(N-2)+...P_(n+1)*(U(N-n-1))+(1-p)*(U(N)*(1-r)+r*U(N+1)< U(N)


This is why i intuitively claimed that there may be more to this. The nonlinear utility function in the number of good people makes that possible. Some U functions, N,n,r,p may exist that realize this inequality.


If for instance you have r=20% in 21 people you have a chance profile of ;

0.00922337 + 0.0484227 x + 0.121057 x^2 + 0.191673 x^3 +
0.215632 x^4 + 0.183287 x^5 + 0.122192 x^6 + 0.0654598 x^7 +
0.0286387 x^8 + 0.0103417 x^9 + 0.00310252 x^10 + 0.000775631 x^11 +
0.00016159 x^12 + 0.0000279675 x^13 + 3.99535*10^-6 x^14 +
4.66124*10^-7 x^15 + 4.36991*10^-8 x^16 + 3.21317*10^-9 x^17 +
1.7851*10^-10 x^18 + 7.04643*10^-12 x^19 + 1.76161*10^-13 x^20 +
2.09715*10^-15 x^21

So even 4 good people has 22%, even 7 people 7% etc.

See why now the answer may depend on the nonlinear character of that utility function?

(Check my math for any corrections but you get the point now. None of this of course applies in fluid fuzzy more frequent risk cases that people help each other and your time is best served helping a situation not nitting it up like that (even if it turns out not nitty at all). There will be more controlled situations though this may prove important. Substitute "good" for eg doctors, specialists etc in an island/colony but even the entire world of billions why not.)

Also forget yourself and say you vote for a member in your family in that "lifeboat" and each individual has a relative or close friend vote for them in that case instead. What do you think happens to the stranger? Does your mother or wife vote for 2% risk for you ie to save a stranger with 98% and lose all 21 with you in there with 2% chance? It starts getting a bit ugly now isnt it? How about if you are the one voting but its 4% now? How good of a person you think you are??? It does become even when not selfish a personal worth calculation in a fully controlled environment where these numbers are exact. But in all these case the above utility argument in some special nonlinear functions is always there true (and maybe unknown). Preserving a diverse population of n 100% of the time may matter more than an individual on occasion even when p*(n+1)<1.

That should be ;

There will come a point that the number is exact and the discussion has merit and we need to investigate more carefully if saving N with 100% and losing 1 with 100% is better sometimes than losing N+1 with p even if (N+1)*p<1.

As the noted philosopher T. Turner once rhetorically asked, "what's math, what's math got to do with it? What's math but a second derivation? Who needs a set when a set can be broken?"

Tina would agree however that the second derivation when it helps understand the first doesnt replace the first but can sometimes create something original based on that understanding, something that never existed before. And the beauty and tragedy of it all is the original took billions of years to happen on its own stochastic path but by finally uncovering its true nature makes now some brilliant new synthesis possible in a tiny fraction of its own age. Brave new world. The rise of complexity uncovers the math in its epic journey and uses it to perform the previously impossible next step to extend the miracle.