The Upper Limit of Value

Thanks David, this looks like a handy paper! 

Given all of this, we'd love feedback and discussion, either as comments here, or as emails, etc.

I don't agree with the argument that infinite impacts of our choices are of Pascalian improbability, in fact I think we probably face them as a consequence of one-boxing decision theory, and some of the more plausible routes to local infinite impact are missing from the paper:
 

• The decision theory section misses the simplest argument for infinite value: in an infinite inflationary universe with infinite copies of me, then my choices are multiplied infinitely. If I would one-box on Newcomb's Problem, then I would take the difference between eating the sandwich and not to be scaled out infinitely. I think this argument is in fact correct and follows from our current cosmological models combine with one-boxing decision theories.
• Under 'rejecting physics' I didn't see any mention of baby universes, e.g. Lee Smolin's cosmological natural selection. If that picture were right, or anything else in which we can affect the occurrence of new universes/inflationary bubbles forming, then that would permit infinite impacts.
• The simulation hypothesis is a plausible way for our physics models to be quite wrong about the world in which the simulation is conducted, and further there would be reason to think simulations would be disproportionately conducted under physical laws that are especially conducive to abundant computation

Thank you so much for this paper! I literally made a similar argument to someone last weekend (in the context of economic growth), glad to have a canonical/detailed source to look at so I can present more informed views/have an easy thing to link to.

I will read the rest of the paper later, but just flagging that I don't find your response to "incomplete understanding of physics" particularly persuasive:

Perhaps our understanding of physics is incorrect. That is, it is possible that our understanding of any of the assumed correct disciplines discussed here, from cosmology to computation. This is not merely an objection to the authors’ personal grasp of the subjects, but a claim that specific premises may, in the future, be found to be incorrect.

I think the strongest version of the "we don't understand physics" argument is that we (or at least I) have nonzero credence in physics as we know it to be mistaken in a way that allows for infinities. This results in an infinite expected value. 

Now, perhaps we can exclude arbitrarily exclude sufficiently small probabilities ("Pascal's mugging"). But at least for me, my inside-view credence in misunderstanding the finitude of physics is >0.1%, and I don't think Pascal's mugging exceptions should be applicable to probabilities at anywhere near that level.

Michael Dickens has a different issue where finite distributions can still have  infinite expected value, but I have not read enough of your paper to know if it addresses this objection.