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WhySpace comments on Fermi paradox of human past, and corresponding x-risks - Less Wrong
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Comments (18)
The bit about EQ was particularly interesting.(Encephalization Quotient is the ratio of the volume encapsulated by the brain to the volume of the animal. It serves as a stand-in for IQ in extinct species. Humans have an EQ between 5 and 8.)
It should be possible to examine current organisms, and classify them based on EQ and whether they have opposable thumbs. For each category, we could look at what fraction display abilities like tool use, communication, vocabulary size, and passing the mirror self-recognition test.
For example, perhaps the average EQ=1 animal without opposable thumbs has a vocabulary of 2 (alarm cries and mating signals) and doesn't pass the mirror test. On the other hand, maybe half of EQ=4 animal with opposable thumbs display rudimentary tool use.
The actual range of abilities would give us our probability distributions for speculating about extinct animals. After some math to account for gaps in the fossil record 65+ million years ago, we should be able to estimate the probability that certain dinosaurs could use tools or pass the mirror test.
The hard part is determining the probability of developing civilization, given that a species displays certain marks of intelligence. We only have 1 data point, and anthropic principle makes it almost useless.
As a side note, this might also be interesting, purely from a utilitarian standpoint. If insect suffering matters, that would completely dwarf all human moral weight, since there are 10^18 of them but only 10^9 of us.
However, perhaps we don't care morally about animals which can't pass the mirror test, on the assumption that this means they have no self-image, and therefore no consciousness. They could feel pain and other stimuli, but there would be no internal observer to notice their own suffering.
If that's the case, animal welfare might still dominate over human welfare, but by a smaller margin. Doing what I described in the previous comment would let us estimate the value of future life in general, if we can determine to within an order of magnitude or so how much we value animals with various traits. This is critical for questions like whether terraforming mars is net positive or net negative.
I actually drew up a spreadsheet to estimate this: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xnfsDuC0ddUxvKekGLJ5QA5nrXxzked7K-k6jqUm538/edit?usp=sharing
I agree with you about the numbers: If there were say 10^15 insects then their moral weight might be in question. However there are actually more like 10^18, which is huge even for very small per-insect weightings.