What does it mean for a person to "have" a preference? It's certainly not going to be written explicitly somewhere. Let's just ask: Which of the formal preferences fits you best? You must decide on one of these things, because it's about how the world gets determined, and the world will be determined somehow anyway, so by not deciding to take a particular course of action, you are only implicitly choosing a less optimal path, determined by something other than what you (refused to) decide. Randomness hath no power.
I agree that any definition of preference that takes most of its data from a person snapshot is going to define (slightly) different things based on you at 3PM and at 10AM. But when it decides based on you at 3PM, it's still going to take into account you at 10AM, to the full extent you at 3PM prefer you at 10AM to be taken into account, even if that leads to satisfying some of the likes you at 3PM have to a lesser extent.
There are many ideas that move you, and what you want is only one of them. If something literally can't move you, it's won't succeed in taking over your preference, but among the things that do move you, there is a nontrivial balance. Maybe a moral principle will act directly apposite to an emotional drive in some situation, and win. Preference is the decision of the sum total of the things that move you.
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Re: Re (2): intelligence augmentation
Date: 2010-05-19 09:56 am (UTC)I agree that any definition of preference that takes most of its data from a person snapshot is going to define (slightly) different things based on you at 3PM and at 10AM. But when it decides based on you at 3PM, it's still going to take into account you at 10AM, to the full extent you at 3PM prefer you at 10AM to be taken into account, even if that leads to satisfying some of the likes you at 3PM have to a lesser extent.
There are many ideas that move you, and what you want is only one of them. If something literally can't move you, it's won't succeed in taking over your preference, but among the things that do move you, there is a nontrivial balance. Maybe a moral principle will act directly apposite to an emotional drive in some situation, and win. Preference is the decision of the sum total of the things that move you.