= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Larks comments on Open Thread: September 2009 - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (179)
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?
This phrase makes the difference for me- the 3^^^3 other people in the original argument weren't mad- or at least, no more than would have been mad anyway.
Additionally, in your scenario, we have to consider discount rates- it's certainly conceivable that someone might choose the dust specks over torture now, but be willing to forgo the dust specks in return for torture in 3^^^3 seconds time.
Does it seem likely to you that out of 3^^^3 people chosen with no particular safeguards, not one of them will find a dust speck in the eye to be maddening? It could be the last straw in a string of misfortunes; it could set off some causal chain that will lead to other maddening events, etc.
3^^^3 is such a huge number, some must find it maddening, but the proportion will be a lot lower than the odds that 50 years of torture breaks you mentally.