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Emily comments on Open Thread: September 2009 - Less Wrong
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On the consolidation of dust specks and the preservation of utilitarian conclusions:
Suppose that you were going to live for at least 3^^^3 seconds. (If you claim that you cannot usefully imagine a lifespan of 3^^^3 seconds or greater, I must insist that you concede that you also cannot usefully imagine a group of 3^^^3 persons. After all, persons are a good deal more complicated than seconds, and you have experienced more seconds than people.)
Suppose that while you are contemplating how to spend your 3^^^3-plus seconds, you are presented with a binary choice: you may spend the next 50 years of this period of time being tortured, or you may spend the next 3^^^3 seconds with a speck of dust in your eye that you cannot get rid of until that time period is up. (Should you succeed in uploading or similar over the course of the next 3^^^3 seconds, the sensation of the speck in the eye will accompany you in the absence of a physical eye until you have waited it out). Assume that after the conclusion of the torture (should you select it), you will be in fine physical health to go on with the rest of your lengthy life, although no guarantees are made for your sanity. Assume that the speck of dust does not impede your vision, and that you will not claw out your eye trying to be rid of it at any time; likewise, no guarantees are made for your sanity.
What selection would you make?
That's interesting: I have much, much less hesitation in saying TORTURE to this one. With the original, I can grudgingly concede that I suppose I possibly ought to choose TORTURE, but I still can't ever quite convince myself to feel that it's a good answer. This one, I think I can.
Suppose you are given a button that you can press at any time during the 50 years of torture, that will stop the torture (and erase your memory of it if you wish), but you'll have to live with the dust speck from then on.
I predict that you'll press the button after actually being tortured for a couple of hours, maybe days, but at most weeks. Even professional spies/soldiers/terrorists who have trained to resist torture end up betraying their cause, so I find it hard to believe that you can hold out for 50 years.
But if you really prefer TORTURE now, that brings up an interesting question: whose preferences are more important, the current you, or the hypothetical future you? It could be argued that the future you is in a better position to decide, since she knows what it actually feels like to be tortured for a significant period of time, whereas you don't.
But I don't consider that a knock-down argument, so what do you think? Suppose you can also commit to not pressing the button (say by disabling your arm/hand muscles for 50 years), would you do so?
(This is related to a recent comment by Rolf Andreassen, which I think applies better to this scenario.)
Yes, I think you're almost certainly right about the button, which thought does indeed put a dent in my lesser hesitation in choosing TORTURE. I think I would definitely not commit to not pressing the button if I were able to "try out" the SPECKS scenario for some short period of time first (say, a week). That way I could make a comparison. Absent that condition... I don't know. I can't imagine having the guts to commit to not pressing it.
The fact is that while I certainly don't see a momentary dust speck as torture, I can easily imagine beginning to see it as torture after a day, never mind 3^^^3 seconds, which is rather longer than 50 years. But I can't be certain of that, nor of to what extent I would get used to it, nor of how it would compare with much worse kinds of torture. (But then again, there's a spanner in the works: knowing that you won't have any lasting physical damage... perhaps that would lend some kind of strength of mind to a torturee?)