[oarabbus_]

>(If death truly had negative infinity utility, it would overpower the benefit of everything and we couldn't do anything.)

It's true death has utility in an economic sense, as one needs not look further than the funeral/death care industry to find utility. But if we are talking about death of the self, the negative infinite utility claim seems more convincing than the non-negative-infinite one. In fact, negative infinite utility might be a near-perfect synonym for death.

And at the risk of sounding overly nihilistic, it may well overpower the benefit of everything/anything, again if we are specifically talking about the self.

[kqr]

I am talking about death of the self.

When crossing the street, there's a tiny risk of death, but a fairly good chance of a somewhat desirable outcome (getting to the other side.) If you considered your death to have negative infinity utility, and the desirable outcome to have finite positive utility, then you would opt to not cross the street ever, because negative infinity times small probability plus positive finite number times large probability is still negative infinity in total.

Essentially, any time you're weighing up your options, and one of the outcomes has negative infinity utility with non-zero probability, then the outcome of that course of action also has negative infinity utility, the way these terms are usually defined.

Thus, given the behaviour of most people, they do not think of their death has having negative infinity utility.

[oarabbus_]

>When crossing the street, there's a tiny risk of death, but a fairly good chance of a somewhat desirable outcome (getting to the other side.) If you considered your death to have negative infinity utility, and the desirable outcome to have finite positive utility, then you would opt to not cross the street ever,

Weighing probabilities is one thing, and assumes humans are capable of rationally weighing these outcomes (which isn't clear) but even then which part of our scientific understanding of death precludes death having negative infinite utility?

Still, this doesn't disprove death as negative infinite utility, as the risk of death also exists from _not_ crossing the street; one isn't preventing the risk of death by refusing to cross the street. In fact, staying permanently in one place, never crossing the street, and doing nothing indefinitely out of a fear of death, would simply guarantee one's death.

>and the desirable outcome to have finite positive utility

Extend the timescale and the desirable outcome leads to the same outcome as the "undesirable" one.

[nwatson]

Crossing the street ... is also a study in how rules change. A distractible American(-Brazilian) arriving in the UK will have a few heart-stopping moments when they look left, and on the verge stepping into the street, take that precautionary glance right and realize they did it wrong.

The "West" is possibly on the verge of some large rule changes.

[bryanrasmussen]

at some point the chance of dying not crossing the street and crossing the street are equal.

[ivalm]

True negative infinities, even discounted, are still infinite, so not very useful as it makes all trajectories equal (negatively infinite).

[oarabbus_]

I agree the characterization isn't very useful, as you point out - but that's the tricky thing with infinit(ies), isn't it? When discussing human behavior and introducing an infinity concept, the final result is the same for all people in all cases.

[ivalm]

The obvious answer is that death isn’t a negatively infinite outcome. The fact that people prefer death to living (eg via suicide) is an example thereof.