20 KiB
Need help with a Bayesian calculation
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Author: u/None *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3d2sb4/need_help_with_a_bayesian_calculation/
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Score: 0
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Created: 2015-07-13T01:48:53
Post:
Ok guys, so I have this question but I don't know where to post it. Is there a subreddit or another place where I could ask this? Is there one of you who's willing to help me out even if this is off-topic?. The question:
What's the optimal choice in a situation in which you have only two outcomes |Either the whole human race goes extinct, or all the others lifeforms on earth (here humanity has no need of those for its sustenance) do>?
I've tried to solve this problem, but I feel like having smart people as a sounding board would improve my take on the problem.
Probably, inside this problem lay the hidden questions of how much an animal life is worth compared to a human one, how much the potential of the whole of earth ecosystem is worth compared to our race's potential, and probably the meaning of life, or at least the inferable purpose of life according to life-form's priorities (like, they prefer life over death, death over eternal suffering, freedom over life and other such).
Please tell me if you think this is too much a heavy question.
EDIT: just to clarify, I don't need anyone to do a Bayesian calculation for me, I just want to know your take on the problem.
EDIT2: Deleted the "Bayesian" bit since I misused it.
Comments:
u/davidmanheim [+12] (45 minutes later)
Yes, there are some deep questions there, and no, they aren't related to the math. Bayes law doesn't tell you how to value things, it's only useful for making decisions and updating beliefs once you've figured that out yourself.
u/None [+2] (12 hours later)
So, is there a way to figure out values?
u/Chronophilia [+3] sci-fi ≠ futurology (23 hours later)
Ask a philosopher. Statistics cannot help you here.
u/None [+1] (23 hours later)
Didn't ask for statistics, I asked for the help of smart people.
Anyway, It's not like someone forces you to help, if you are so against the idea.
u/Chronophilia [+5] sci-fi ≠ futurology (23 hours later)
Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude! Your top-level post said this was a question about Bayesian probability calculations.
Determining the relative value of a human life and an animal life is way outside the realm of probability theory. It doesn't even have an objective right answer; you'd need to ask an expert to get a good idea of the different perspectives. Maybe /r/askphilosophy can help?
And while I'm flattered that you consider this subreddit to be full of "smart people", being smart in one area doesn't make a person smart in everything. You wouldn't ask Albert Einstein for help with a plumbing problem, because he's a theoretical physicist. You'd ask a plumber. The people in this subreddit are generally pretty good at mathematics, but an important part of your question is outside our collective expertise.
u/None [+2] (a day later)
Well, I made this mental connection in which Mathematics is included in Logic, and Philosophy is also included in Logic, and maybe people good at logic would feel at home, like Einstein could feel dealing with molecular bonds.
I'm versed in philosophy anyway, so I think it was some sort of bias on my part. That's why I asked if there would have been a better place to pose the question. Thank you for answering that, by the way.
u/thyratron [+4] (2 hours later)
From HPMOR
Of course, the point of a subjective Bayesian calculation wasn't that, after you made up a bunch of numbers, multiplying them out would give you an exactly right answer. The real point was that the process of making up numbers would force you to tally all the relevant facts and weigh all the relative probabilities. ... One version of the process was to tally hypotheses and list out evidence, make up all the numbers, do the calculation, and then throw out the final answer and go with your brain's gut feeling after you'd forced it to really weigh everything.
u/davidmanheim [+3] (4 hours later)
Yes. Thinking about a problem is helpful. But you need to think through it yourself before the process quoted makes any sense.
Also, as intended to be applied here, it badly conflates expected utilities and "raw" utilities.
u/None [+1] (12 hours later)
Trying to learn here. Please explain what you mean by "raw" utilities.
u/Transfuturist [+8] Carthago delenda est. (3 hours later)
Bayes doesn't do values, only probabilities. This is a utility problem, and without a utility function to be compared to, you can't make a choice either way.
u/ancientcampus [+1] juggling kittens (13 hours later)
Well, it is a bayes problem, but like most bayes problems the big challenge is not the math but the fact it relies on utilities or probabilities that are very hard to measure. Which the theorem itself does not help you with.
u/DataPacRat [+5] Amateur Immortalist (an hour later)
What are your assumptions on the odds of some sapient form of life other than humans ever coming into existence? Is there a non-zero chance that humanity is the only form of sapience that would ever exist? If so, is there any utilitarian value to the extinction of all minds which can ever /give/ value to anything other than 'negative infinity', which would mean that the appropriate answer would always be 'keep humanity alive', no matter how much value there is in keeping other non-sapient species alive?
u/None [+1] (13 hours later)
Mmm, well, we know we're not the only case a life form has reached the level of intelligence of australopithecus, because we have chimpanzees and bonobos, and we know these two have the potential for abstraction and language, because captive primates can learn the sign language.
So that level of intelligence, at least, is not a single exception composed by humans. We can infer that the probabilities of intelligent life are not so incredibly low as to never happen but magically in us (like many theists seem to suppose), this the collective potential of the millions of species could give us a probability very close to one of multiple intelligent life in the future.
On the other hand, the probability of intelligent life in humans is one...
Well, is it intelligent life with many variations and differences preferable over a single type? And if yes, is this difference enough to justify the lost of a certainty over a (possibly) nearly-certain possibility? Mmmm, probably not.
u/codahighland [+1] (15 hours later)
On the other hand, the probability of intelligent life in humans is one...
The POSTERIOR probability is 1. The PRIOR probability (that is, if you didn't already know that humans were intelligent life) is less than that.
u/None [+1] (19 hours later)
Is one in the moment of your choice, that's what I meant.
u/codahighland [+2] (21 hours later)
Oh, fair enough then.
u/DrPresidentMD [+2] (19 hours later)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think your problem is a Bayesian calculation. It seems more like a morality question.
Remember that Bayes theorem states:
P (A|B)= P (B|A) *P (A)/P (B)
where A and B are events, P (A) is the probability of event A, and P (A|B) is the probability of event A given that event B has already happened.
A common example of someone using Bayes theorem is a doctor finding the probability that a patient really has breast cancer given a positive mammogram finding. [A would be the event of having breast cancer, B the event of having a positive mammogram finding. ] The best I can summarize is that bayes theorem let's us "update" our belief in the probability of some event after being given new information about the conditions that influence said event.
In your post you present a choice between two scenarios, one in which humans are made extinct, and one in which every life form save humans are made extinct--we're not given new information that let's us update beliefs on probabilities, but rather with situations that examine what we value.
I think the obvious choice would be the one in which humans live. Most people value their own existence. However, this existence might be pretty bleak. Though you tell us to assume humans would be able to live without other life forms, I imagine it would be quite difficult. Even if we ignore the problem of getting food without plants, animals, and fungi, human life would be very different without the almost unimaginable number of microorganisms that live on earth and throughout our very own bodies. (You may know that there are more bacterial cells than human cells in what you typically think of as "you"). That said, we would be freed from communicable diseases such as malaria, pneumonia, meningitis, etc. This scenario might make a pretty good story--would humans resort to cannibalism to survive? Could we synthesize enough amino acids, glucose, fatty acids, and vitamins using non living resources on earth? And what about the environmental effects? Without microorganisms and plants, the composition of the atmosphere would change--I think we'd eventually have to dedicate a lot of resources to splitting oxygen out of water.
Anyway, I hope this helps. Sorry for any spelling, formating, or factual mistakes--I'm typing this from mobile.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (a day later)
The question boils down to what you ascribe moral weight to and how much. If a human has 100 'moralons', does a blade of grass have any number of moralons greater than 0? How about an insect? A bacteria? A blue whale?
If you can set those numbers, the choice is trivial -- just add up the total for humans and the total for non-humans and compare them. You obviously end up with three scenarios:
- Humans have greater moral weight; kill everything else.
- Plants/animals have greater moral weight; kill humans.
- They are exactly the same. Kill all the non-humans because we are the ones making the choice and therefore we get to win ties.
How to assign moralon values is left as an exercise for the reader.
u/None [+1] (13 days later)
Interesting. So what would you have done if you where in that situation right now? And how did you come to the conclusion?
u/eaglejarl [+2] (13 days later)
Me personally? I'd kill everything else. I believe that animals and plants have moral weight but I'm still going to side with humans. If I'm being honest, I'm siding with humans because I'm not perfectly rational. I could justify that decision if I wanted to, but the fact is that I would not be making it based on moral weight.
"What would you do?" wasn't the question I thought you were asking though -- you were asking about the optimal choice. I don't know that my decision is optimal, and it may well not be. It's probably not optimal from a moral perspective -- I do assign moralons to non-humans, so the combined weight of all the other critters on earth might believably outweigh that of humans.
Even on pragmatic grounds, my choice might not be optimal. Objectively speaking, the only reasons to assign greater moral weight to humans is that we can create things (art, music, poetry, science....) and because the person doing the assigning is (presumably) human. If all humans dropped dead right now, it's not improbable that another sapient species would evolve and do a better job (for whatever value of "better") than we have. So, perhaps the pragmatically better thing to do is kill the humans. I don't care. I'm still choosing the humans.
Marginally offtopic: I once asked my co-founder "if you had the chance to sacrifice your life in order to save the entire human race, would you do it?" Now, to me, this is a no-brainer: yes, of course I would. He said no. This took me very much by surprise.
u/None [+1] (a month later)
It takes me by surprise too, would he want to live in a world where he's the only person alive? How did the conversation go?
EDIT: don't know why I took it like a "me or Humanity" thing, I guess in my mind there was a box like in that movie, The Box, and This scarred man told me "either you die or Humanity dies, choose.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (a month later)
There was mutual incomprehension--he couldn't imagine why I would do that, and I couldn't imagine why he wouldn't. Even when I said "you realize that 'the entire human race' includes you, right? You're dying in either scenario, it just depends what's happening to everyone else"...even then he wouldn't do it.
I'm really glad I got out of that company.
u/None [+1] (14 days later)
Have you read the articles on Foundational research institute that are related to this:
u/eaglejarl [+1] (14 days later)
I ascribe moral weight to those things, yes. I ascribe moral weight to anything that is sentient. I ascribe more moral weight to anything that is sapient. If it's a question of sentient vs sapient death, under non-contrived scenarios I will choose sapient survival.
u/Sophronius [+2] The Need to Become Stronger (12 days later)
Ok, it seems nobody else is trying to answer the question, so I'll give it a go.
The issue seems analogous to the argument for vegetarianism: There are a flagrilion more animals than humans. THEREFORE it is either the case that animals have significant moral worth which through the virtue of multiplication then eclipses all human moral worth, OR they have no moral worth at all.
Then to find your utility function you could look at your own revealed preferences: You (probably) currently act as if even just one animal has some moral worth, which means that the answer would almost certainly be that letting all humans die is preferable.
BUT the problem arises when you realize that human preferences are not consistent. We are willing to pay 1 dollar to save one bird, but not a thousand dollars to save a million of them. So something does not add up but the question is where the problem lies: Either we give up on trying to use math for moral questions OR we give up on trying to make our moral preferences consistent. Either way the prospect of moral progress becomes rather bleak...
Personally I think the second option is the better one, which implies that choosing for the humans to live is probably better, unless you're an extreme animal rights activist, since that is what most of us would intuitively prefer.
u/None [+2] (13 days later)
Two weeks and thirty-four comments later we finally have a winner! Thank you, user who actually tried to find a solution instead of putting the question aside because it's impossible to answer or only bashing the op because he used the wrong terms, even if the meaning of the question is pretty evident!
I'll fondly remember your attitude towards problems, and I'll let you know that it's inspiring for me, even if there's only one person out of, well I don't really know how many read the post, but just one in the rational subreddit that's willing to use rationality to solve problems, even hypothetical ones.
I'll let you know that if I ever, in the future, were to build a giant company of whatever, I won't come short of proposing you a position as big-ass manager with a shitload of pay, because you're the one of the very few people I've ever found who's willing to use his brain to really figure problems out.
u/Sophronius [+2] The Need to Become Stronger (18 days later)
Well I'm very flattered, thank you! If I ever get to realize my dream of forming a team of rationalists dedicated to improving the world, I'll contact you as well. :-)
I share your frustration with the rationalist community, largely because I strongly believe that rationalists should win: http://lesswrong.com/lw/7i/rationality_is_systematized_winning/
I've always felt that there must be a team of competent people working in secret to save the world somewhere, but somehow that doesn't seem to be the case.
u/None [+1] (a month later)
Unless Illuminati.
u/ancientcampus [+1] juggling kittens (13 hours later)
Just to help better define the problem:
Does choosing in favor of humanity give it immunity to all future extinction events until the death of the universe? Or does it just dodge this one particular extinction event? (Ditto for Earth, but that's less important)
u/None [+1] (15 hours later)
just this one
u/MugaSofer [+1] (7 hours later)
Gosh, but that's hard. Moral uncertainty is awkward.
You might be able to pull a Fermi estimate out of some experiments with people's instinctive reaction to harm to different animals, and then use Bayes to evaluate your the expected utility of different possibilities for humanity's future ... but honestly, there's so much uncertainty I doubt you could get an answer with any degree of confidence.
u/None [+0] (22 hours later)
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u/None [+3] (a day later)
Omega whisks all humans away from Earth into a giant spaceship. It will either (a) kill all humans on the spaceship and leave Earth alone or (b) destroy all life still on Earth and provide a vast array of replicators that mimic farming in terms of costs, side effects, and output. (You miss out on truffles. Oh well.) Furthermore, we can ask Omega to provide more replicators at any location we want, and it will. In either case, it returns all humans to Earth, dead or alive, exactly where it found them, with no apparent passage of time.
Do you prefer it to execute plan A or plan B?
Or are you going to try to outsmart my revised scenario instead of probing the issue the hypothetical question is trying to probe? You know what it's trying to ask, after all, and it's just a waste of everyone's time to try to work around the real issue.
And you misunderstood the original question in trying to avoid answering it. The original question said:
humanity has no need of those for its sustenance
Suggesting that humans can already synthesize food without the help of any living organisms, making your objection null and void.
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
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u/None [+2] (3 days later)
Plus, no mosquitoes or germs. No AIDS/HIV or any other viruses.
Well, considering that the alternative is all humans dying...
Is it supposed to be some moral question about whether human life is more valuable or that of other organisms?
Yes. If you were confused, you should have asked.
u/None [+1] (4 days later)
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u/None [+2] (6 days later)
That's what this entire conversation was about lol.
Actually, you answered a question you were confused about, rather than asking for a clarification. This is a good strategy for taking tests at school (unless your teacher says otherwise), but it's a bad strategy at understanding.
No life has any more inherent worth than any other life
Well, no sophont's life, yes.
u/None [+1] (23 hours later)
I meant that humans can live on without any other life-form's help. Every other living being would die. Disappear. Whatever.
u/None [-1] (23 hours later)
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u/None [+2] (a day later)
Without germs we'd die fairly quickly
In the real world, yes. In this hypothetical scenario, instead...
u/None [+0] (2 days later)
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u/None [+1] (3 days later)
We don't have alien biology, we simply have the technology to compensate for lack of other lifeforms.