Even if one party has a good idea what the problem in communication is does not mean that that party automatically knows how to solve the problem or know whether or not they can solve it. The only way to find out sometimes is to try and see.
Too true.
Reading your comment I get the impression you think the conversation was a hostile one.
No, I didn't think you two were hostile. (If anyone showed hostility here it was me. :( Sorry about that.)
I had the impression that it would not bother the general population. Am I incorrect? Were these comments thrust on the general population in the recent posts section?
No, only in the Recent Comments list. Nevertheless, we do try to maintain standards here using the karma system. In my opinion (and please note - this is only one opinion) your debate went on too long. I probably over-reacted - in part because the topic was special relativity and I have witnessed far too many fruitless online debates on the subject.
I hope my assholery doesn't drive you away. And your response to my bad manners earned my upvote.
in part because the topic was special relativity and I have witnessed far too many fruitless online debates on the subject.
Too true. I am still getting grips on what the community is like.
My hope for the conversation was that the technical part of the problem would get solved and then we could have a juicy conversation on why one person or the other had map that mismatched the territory.
You may have over reacted, everyone does and then you did a good job recovering which is usually the most important part.
It has been suggested that animals have less subjective experience than people. For example, it would be possible to have an animal that counts as half a human for the purposes of morality. This is an argument as to why that may be the case.
If you're moving away from Earth at 87% of the speed of light, time dilation would make it look like time on Earth is passing half as fast. From your point of reference, everyone will live twice as long. This obviously won't change the number of life years they live. You can't double the amount of good in the world just by moving at 87% the speed of light. It's possible that there's just a preferred point of reference, and everything is based on people's speed relative to that, but I doubt it.
No consider if their brains were slowed down a different way. Suppose you uploaded someone, and made the simulation run at half speed. Would they experience a life twice as long? This seems to be just slowing it down a different way. I doubt it would change the total amount experienced.
If that's true, it means that sentience isn't something you either have or don't have. There can be varying amounts of it. Also, someone whose brain has been slowed down would be less intelligent by most measures, so this is some evidence that subjective experience correlates with intelligence.
Edit: replaced "sentience" with the more accurate "subjective experience".