A lot of rationalist thinking about ethics and economy assumes we have very well defined utility functions - knowing exactly our preferences between states and events, not only being able to compare them (I prefer X to Y), but assigning precise numbers to every combinations of them (p% chance of X equals q% chance of Y). Because everyone wants more money, you should theoretically even be able to assign exact numerical values to positive outcomes in your life.
I did a small experiment of making a list of things I wanted, and giving them point value. I must say this experiment ended up in a failure - thinking "If I had X, would I take Y instead", and "If I had Y, would I take X instead" very often resulted in a pair of "No"s. Even thinking about multiple Xs/Ys for one Y/X usually led me to deciding they're really incomparable. Outcomes related to similar subject were relatively comparable, those in different areas in life were usually not.
I finally decided on some vague numbers and evaluated the results two months later. My success on some fields was really big, on other fields not at all, and the only thing that was clear was that numbers I assigned were completely wrong.
This leads me to two possible conclusions:
- I don't know how to draw utility functions, but they are a good model of my preferences, and I could learn how to do it.
- Utility functions are really bad match for human preferences, and one of the major premises we accept is wrong.
Anybody else tried assigning numeric values to different outcomes outside very narrow subject matter? Have you succeeded and want to share some pointers? Or failed and want to share some thought on that?
I understand that details of many utility functions will be highly personal, but if you can share your successful ones, that would be great.
I feel some people here are trying to define their utility functions via linear combinations of sub-functions which only depend on small parts of the world state.
Example: If I own X, that'll give me a utility of 5, if I own Y that'll give me a utility of 3, if I own Z, that'll give me a utility of 1.
Problem: Choose any two of {X, Y, Z}
Apparent Solution: {X, Y} for a total utility of 8.
But human utility functions are not a linear combination of such sub-functions, but functions from global World states into the real numbers. Think about the above example with X = Car, Y = Bike, Z = Car keys.
It seems obvious now, but the interdependencies are much more complicated. Like money utility being dependent on the market situation, food utility being dependent on the stuff you ate recently, material (as in building) utility being dependent on available tools and vice versa, internet availability utility being dependent on available computer, power, and time.