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hairyfigment comments on Morality of Doing Simulations Is Not Coherent [SOLVED, INVALID] - Less Wrong
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Where is the contradiction supposed to lie? You're implying the second set of simulations does not contain consciousness. If that's right, then physics gave you a way to cheat and compute the answer in an unexpected way that cannot occur in nature. Since physics was not set up to require torture, this seems entirely possible, if suspicious.
You are not noticing that the "simulate physics" action already includes lots of technical details you don't know about, which already effectively introduce a gap between what happens in the simulation (e.g. your feelings) and what I actually do (e.g. manipulate some matrices of numbers).
All that changes between the two versions is some details of how I do the computations, and if your position changes at all depending on how I do the computations, it is already incoherent.
It's an easy exercise to find a continuous interpolation between any two versions, and ask "so where exactly is the boundary?".
On the other hand, if you try to argue that the more possibility of doing computations I'm not actually doing is immoral, you are essentially arguing that the static snapshot is immoral too. And if that's the case, than so is looking at you carefully.
I deny the parent's second paragraph. (In a nitpicky sense this is trivially false; you could do simulations by kidnapping people and taking over their brains, or by writing calculations on them using knives.)
And of course I did notice your first point, but I deny that we should leap from there to the conclusion of no consciousness. I don't know that I believe it in your scenario; I'm only going along with it because you wanted to assume it with effective-certainty, and you (implausibly) claimed that part wasn't essential to your argument.
Pick some simulation that you are sure definitely has the attribute of "no consciousness" you want to defend (e.g. fill the whole data with a regular checked pattern).
Then pick some simulation that I'm doing that you don't like.
Interpolate all situation between them with a continuous parameter from 0 to 1.
At which point does the "no consciousness" attribute disappear?
The fact that consciousness admits of degrees is verified whenever you go to sleep, or at least when you incorporate external stimuli into a dream. Highway hypnosis seems like another good example.
You say you're already doing the simulation. Interpolations couldn't tell you anything new about what happens within said simulation. Now, there are nevertheless reasons to wonder if they contain consciousness or otherwise add to the problem. But what we know is that you already simulated torture. I need not have a full answer to every philosophical question in order to object.
Thank you!
Indeed my line of thought was incorrect.
The information-theoretic approach + admitting fractional levels of consciousness neatly solves what seemed paradoxical to me.
I edited the article to reflect this update.