> Value of my life (at least to myself): infinity,
Really? Have any kids, a wife? Would you die for them? Would you gas people in order to survive? Is there any cause you would fight to the death for, other than pure survival?
If you would give up your life, voluntarily, for any reason at all, then it stands to reason that you do not value it infinitely - you value the thing for which you gave it up more.
I'm not sure if you're putting me on with your response.
I know about aleph, and I understand cardinalities.
There's no way that you value your life infinitely, while you value, say, your opposition to holocausts uncountably infinitely. Do you or ericb truly believe that this is the case, or are you putting me on?
Just because I know there are cardinalities of infinities doesn't mean that it makes sense to claim that the people use these values in their life calculations.
It's very simple, for example, to use arguments from the amount of money a person will accept for a more dangerous job, as byrneseyeview pointed out, to show that people value their lives as a finite number. If people valued their lives infinitely, they would accept no additional money for any increased risk of anything, ever.
Unless of course, people value money infinitely too, and they're doing some sort transfinite math in their heads. Which I think you'll agree is a bit surreal and total nonsense.
You can avoid this infinity crap by asking the OP how much debt he would saddle his wife and kids, or society in general, with to extend his life by an hour. If the value of his life in infinite, presumably he would leave his family destitute and bankrupt for the slightest increase in his lifespan.
Really? Have any kids, a wife? Would you die for them? Would you gas people in order to survive? Is there any cause you would fight to the death for, other than pure survival?