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entirelyuseless comments on Rationality Quotes Thread September 2015 - Less Wrong
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There is at least one thing in the laws of physics that seems like benevolence rather than the absence of it.
When animals have a strong tendency to do certain things, e.g. eat or engage in sex, those things tend to be pleasant to the animal.
That seems like benevolence. I could imagine a situation where everything that animals tended to do, was painful to them. You might say that is absurd, since then they would not tend to do those things. But they do those things because of the laws of physics, not because of how they feel. So there is nothing absurd about it, just like a person can be on a rollercoaster without any control over what is happening. It would be pretty terrible if life was like that, but fortunately it's not.
How do you know that? (For central examples of "animal").
The same way I know that you are a conscious being. In other words by comparing the way they behave with the way I behave.
That would imply that a bacterium engaging in things that feel pleasant to it. After all, like me, it tries to avoid things that cause it harm and tries to do things that benefit it.
It would also imply that a Roomba is engaging in things that feel pleasant to it.
obligatory xkcd response:
http://xkcd.com/1558/