Quote Originally Posted by NightGizmo View Post
That's what I was trying to address in the second paragraph. You have to make your decisions based on the increase/decrease in utility to you, as you exist. So, you have to have a starting point for that utility -- in this case, the zero point is "I'm not alive".

If you just assign "undefined" to death, then you can't make any decisions that involve even the slightest risk of death, because then the entire decision calculation becomes undefined or incorrectly leaves out death as a consequence.
Right, but the zero point isn't I'm not alive. Because if I'm not alive, I'm not alive. That's not winning or losing or balanced between the two, that's just naught.