McCutcheon, Randall G. (2018) How to co-exist with nonexistent expectations. [Preprint]

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Abstract

We address the problem that gambles having undefined expectation pose for decision theory. Observing that to place a value on such a gamble exposes one to a finitary diachronic Dutch Book, we defend a variant of Mark Colyvan's ``Relative Expected Utility Theory'' ({\bf REUT}), noting that it has the property of never preferring a gamble $X$ to an identically distributed gamble $Y$. We demonstrate, however, that even {\bf REUT} subscribers succomb to diachronic incoherence should they assign infinite expectation to a gamble they actually confront. In a final section, we use basic principles of anthropic reasoning (as formulated by Brandon Carter) to show why one needn't ever do so.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID McCutcheon, Randall G. cutch17@yahoo.com 0000-0002-5305-3662
Keywords:	St. Petersburg Game, Pasadena Game, Relative Expectation Theory, Infinite Expectation
Subjects:	General Issues > Decision Theory Specific Sciences > Probability/Statistics
Depositing User:	Dr. Randall G. McCutcheon
Date Deposited:	02 Nov 2018 01:23
Last Modified:	02 Nov 2018 01:23
Item ID:	15244
Subjects:	General Issues > Decision Theory Specific Sciences > Probability/Statistics
Date:	4 October 2018
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/15244

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• How to co-exist with nonexistent expectations. (deposited 05 Oct 2018 14:23)
  • How to co-exist with nonexistent expectations. (deposited 02 Nov 2018 01:23) [Currently Displayed]
    • How to co-exist with nonexistent expectations. (deposited 12 May 2019 01:56)

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