Are you saying that 3^^^3 is not sufficiently large? Then consider 3^^^^3.
I'm saying that dust-specks are practically infinitessimal comparatively, and that's in direct comparison. Ergo; a nearly or potentially truly infinite number of dust-speckings would be required to equal one torturing for fifty years, just in terms of direct suffering.
If we were to include the fact that such a torturing would result in the total personality destruction of several reconstructed psyches over the period of that 50 years, I don't necessarily know that such a torture couldn't rightly be called effectively infinite suffering for a single individual.
there's still a yet larger number such that this number of dust specks is worse than torture.
In terms solely of the immediate and direct suffering, certainly. In terms of that suffering and the other consequences -- individual self-determination, for example; or social productivity costs, etc., even an infinite number of dust-speckings begins to become insufficient to the task of equalling a single fifty-year torture. How much those additional elements 'count' as compared to the suffering alone is a question which is not immediately available to simple calculation; we have no means of converting the various forms of utility into a single comparable unit.
Everything else is just accounting that we can't feasibly calculate anyway.
We're already comparing two unimaginably large numbers against one another. For example; the adjustment of 3^^^3 to 3^^^^3 -- how would you decide on the torture vs. dust-speckings if we did the same to torture? What number of years of torture would need to "exceed" 3^^^3 dust-speckings? 51? 500? 50^50?
I'm saying that dust-specks are practically infinitessimal comparatively, and that's in direct comparison. Ergo; a nearly or potentially truly infinite number of dust-speckings would be required to equal one torturing for fifty years, just in terms of direct suffering.
I don't understand what you mean by "practically infinitesimal". Are you saying the negative utility incurred by a dust speck is zero? Also, what do you mean by "nearly... infinite"? Either a quantity is infinite or finite.
...there's still a yet larger number such that
For those not familiar with the topic, Torture vs. Dustspecks asks the question: "Would you prefer that one person be horribly tortured for fifty years without hope or rest, or that 3^^^3 people get dust specks in their eyes?"
Most of the discussion that I have noted on the topic takes one of two assumptions in deriving their answer to that question: I think of one as the 'linear additive' answer, which says that torture is the proper choice for the utilitarian consequentialist, because a single person can only suffer so much over a fifty year window, as compared to the incomprehensible number of individuals who suffer only minutely; the other I think of as the 'logarithmically additive' answer, which inverts the answer on the grounds that forms of suffering are not equal, and cannot be added as simple 'units'.
What I have never yet seen is something akin to the notion expressed in Ursula K LeGuin's The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.If you haven't read it, I won't spoil it for you.
I believe that any metric of consequence which takes into account only suffering when making the choice of "torture" vs. "dust specks" misses the point. There are consequences to such a choice that extend beyond the suffering inflicted; moral responsibility, standards of behavior that either choice makes acceptable, and so on. Any solution to the question which ignores these elements in making its decision might be useful in revealing one's views about the nature of cumulative suffering, but beyond that are of no value in making practical decisions -- they cannot be, as 'consequence' extends beyond the mere instantiation of a given choice -- the exact pain inflicted by either scenario -- into the kind of society that such a choice would result in.
While I myself tend towards the 'logarithmic' than the 'linear' additive view of suffering, even if I stipulate the linear additive view, I still cannot agree with the conclusion of torture over the dust speck, for the same reason why I do not condone torture even in the "ticking time bomb" scenario: I cannot accept the culture/society that would permit such a torture to exist. To arbitrarily select out one individual for maximal suffering in order to spare others a negligible amount would require a legal or moral framework that accepted such choices, and this violates the principle of individual self-determination -- a principle I have seen Less Wrong's community spend a great deal of time trying to consider how to incorporate into Friendliness solutions for AGI. We as a society already implement something similar to this, economically: we accept taxing everyone, even according to a graduated scheme. What we do not accept is enslaving 20% of the population to provide for the needs of the State.
If there is a flaw in my reasoning here, please enlighten me.