Title: Step 1: Define Your Objective Function
Work: The Pragmatist’s Guide Book Series by Simone Collins and Malcolm Collins Full Text for LLMs and AI
Citation: TPG 26.0
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# Step 1: Define Your Objective Function

ob·jec·tive func·tion

noun: objective function

(in linear programming) the function that it is desired to maximize or minimize.

Our objective function is the thing we attempt to maximize or minimize in/with our lives. It is the thing we use when determining optimal actions to take. It is the measuring stick by which we judge the “correctness” of our actions and decisions.

To build your objective function, you must first define what you believe has intrinsic value, then organize these intrinsically valuable things relative to each other.

A function transforms a wide variety of inputs into an output in a systematic way. An objective function is a function designed to optimize for a certain objective. Having an objective function allows you to take in a wide variety of inputs and know what course of action you should take.

For example, you may decide you believe that both maximizing your own positive emotional state and spreading positive emotions to others has intrinsic value, but that your own emotional state is three times more valuable than the emotional states of others. By knowing that this is what you believe, you can take a set of inputs like: “*I have a dollar, if I give this dollar to person X, I estimate there is an 80% probability they will gain ten times the happiness from this dollar than I could”* and come to a confident conclusion about what course of action you should take: *“therefore, given my objective function I should give this dollar to person X*.”

An intrinsic value cannot be proven wrong in the same way an ideology can. Because an ideology (as we are defining it in this book) is a hypothesis about how to maximize an objective function, something could happen that falsifies that hypothesis. Objective functions, on the other hand, are judgment calls. Ultimately, no one can tell you that yours is “wrong.”

We understand the term “objective function” is not a simple English term people commonly use and that, in this sense, it violates our pledge to avoid special vocabulary. This is one of the only places in this guide in which we use an obscure term as opposed to something more mainstream. We would not do this unless we felt it were absolutely necessary. The mainstream term we would use, “purpose,” has a lot of baggage and preconceived notions attached to it, which muddle its place in our lives.

There are several problems with the term “purpose” that do not arise when we use the term “objective function”:

- Purpose is often taken to be a single, discrete thing one is trying to achieve, which is unnecessarily limiting.
- Purpose is taken to be something that is concretely “finishable.” Thus, there is often no winning in life when one has a purpose: “finishing” a purpose before dying indicates wasted potential and failing to “finish” a purpose before dying means failure.
- Purpose is often used to refer to an ideology (e.g., to defend the American way of life) instead of a thing of intrinsic value (e.g., maximizing human liberty and self- determination).

The term “objective function” and our particular use of the term “ideology” will be the only two unique terms used in this guide.