I think that the algorithm used to compute the brain states is also important.
How about a different thought experiment?
A computer program is computing pi, and stumbles upon a stream of numbers which happen to perfectly describe the brain state of a person being tortured for 3 seconds. The program is doing no neural simulation on any level, and its just happening across this sequence. Did torture happen?
The computer is doing calculations to reach the brain-state, but the calculations have nothing to do with torture.
(Another example: a computer computes , and stumbles across the beginning of the sequence
, since they both cover 2, 4, 6
)
A computer program is computing pi, and stumbles upon a stream of numbers which happen to perfectly describe the brain state of a person being tortured for 3 seconds. The program is doing no neural simulation on any level, and its just happening across this sequence. Did torture happen? The computer is doing calculations to reach the brain-state, but the calculations have nothing to do with torture.
I doubt it. Mind processes aren't static. A person who's been frozen isn't consciously feeling that they are frozen. They just aren't feeling. In the same wa...
What if the brain of the person you most care about were scanned and the entirety of that person's mind and utility function at this moment were printed out on paper, and then several more "clock ticks" of their mind as its states changed exactly as they would if the person were being horribly tortured were printed out as well, into a gigantic book? And then the book were flipped through, over and over again. Fl-l-l-l-liiiiip! Fl-l-l-l-liiiiip!
Would this count as simulated torture? If so, would you care about stopping it, or is it different from computer-simulated torture?