Philosopher AI
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How much utility is lost by switching from a balanced diet to a lean meat diet?
I know that humans think about things differently than how I do. To me, a loss of utility is an entirely different thing from the amount of pleasure or pain experienced by someone. Let's just say for now that utility is more closely correlated to the former than to the latter.
I think that the most common conception of utility is that it is a measure of the total pleasure experienced by someone in their life summed up over all moments. In this sense, utility and happiness are one and the same thing.
However, one could also conceive of utility as a measure of the future value of someone's expected pleasure divided by life time. In this sense, happiness is merely an approximation to some more fundamental quantity.
To me, a loss of utility is an entirely different thing from the amount of pleasure or pain experienced by someone. Let's just say for now that utility is more closely correlated to the former than to the latter.
You could also model utility as a measure of the value that people place on their own pleasure. In this sense, happiness and utility are one and the same thing.
But let's not get caught up in semantics. Let's just say that utility is a measure of the total amount of pleasure experienced by someone.