All of davidpearce's Comments + Replies

You remark that "A physical object implementing the state-machine-which-is-us and being in a certain state is what we mean by having a unified mental state." You can stipulatively define a unified mental state in this way. But this definition is not what I (or most people) mean by "unified mental state". Science doesn't currently know why we aren't (at most) just 86 billion membrane-bound pixels of experience. 

But (as far as I can tell) such a definition doesn't explain why we aren't micro-experiential zombies. Compare another fabulously complicated information-processing system, the enteric nervous system ("the brain in the gut"). Even if its individual membrane-bound neurons are micro-pixels of experience, there's no phenomenally unified subject. The challenge is to explain why the awake mind-brain is different - to derive the local and global binding of our minds and the world-simulations we run from (ultimately) from physics.    

I wish the binding problem could be solved so simply. Information flow alone isn't enough. Compare Eric Schwitzgebel ("If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious"). Even if 330 million skull-bound American minds reciprocally communicate by fast electromagnetic signalling, and implement any computation you can think of, then a unified continental subject of experience doesn't somehow switch on - or at least, not on pain of spooky "strong" emergence". 
The mystery is why 86 billion odd membrane-bound, effectively decohered class... (read more)

Forgive me, but how do "information flows" solve the binding problem?

Just a note about "mind uploading". On pain of "strong" emergence, classical Turing machines can't solve the phenomenal binding problem. Their ignorance of phenomenally-bound consciousness is architecturally hardwired. Classical digital computers are zombies or (if consciousness is fundamental to the world) micro-experiential zombies, not phenomenally-bound subjects of experience with a pleasure-pain axis. Speed of execution or complexity of code make no difference: phenomenal unity isn't going to "switch on". Digital minds are an oxymoron. 

Like the poster, I worry about s-risks. I just don't think this is one of them. 

Homunculi are real. Consider a lucid dream. When lucid, you can know that your body-image is entirely internal to your sleeping brain. You can know that the virtual head you can feel with your virtual hands is entirely internal to your sleeping brain too. Sure, the reality of this homunculus doesn’t explain how the experience is possible. Yet such an absence of explanatory power doesn’t mean that we should disavow talk of homunculi.

Waking consciousness is more controversial. But (I’d argue) you can still experience only a homunculus - but now it’s a homunculus that (normally) causally do-varies with the behaviour of an extra-cranial body.

It's good to know we agree on genetically phasing out the biology of suffering! 
Now for your thought-experiments.

Quantitatively, given a choice between a tiny amount of suffering X + everyone and everything else being great, or everyone dying, NU's would choose omnicide no matter how small X is?

 To avoid status quo bias, imagine you are offered the chance to create a type-identical duplicate, New Omelas - again a blissful city of vast delights dependent on the torment of a single child. Would you accept or decline? As an NU, I'd say "no" - even t... (read more)

It wasn't a rhetorical question; I really wanted (and still want) to know your answer.

Thanks for clarifying. NU certainly sounds a rather bleak ethic. But NUs want us all to have fabulously rich, wonderful, joyful lives - just not at the price of anyone else's suffering. NUs would "walk away from Omelas". Reading JDP's post, one might be forgiven for thinking that the biggest x-risk was from NUs. However, later this century and beyond, if (1) “omnicide” is technically feasible, and if (2) suffering persists, then there are intelligent agents who would brin... (read more)

Do they also seek to create and sustain a diverse variety of experiences above hedonic zero?     

Would the prospect of being unable to enjoy a rich diversity of joyful experiences sadden you? If so, then (other things being equal) any policy to promote monotonous pleasure is anti-NU.

Secular Buddhists like NUs seek to minimise and ideally get rid of all experience below hedonic zero. So does any policy option cause you even the faintest hint of disappointment? Well, other things being equal, that policy option isn't NU. May all your dreams come true!

Anyhow, I hadn't intended here to mount a defence of NU ethics - just counter the poster JDP's implication that NU is necessarily more of an x-risk than CU.

Many thanks for an excellent overview. But here's a question. Does an ethic of negative utilitarianism or classical utilitarianism pose a bigger long-term risk to civilisation?

Naively, the answer is obvious. If granted the opportunity, NUs would e.g. initiate a vacuum phase transition, program seed AI with a NU utility function, and do anything humanly possible to bring life and suffering to an end. By contrast, classical utilitarians worry about x-risk and advocate Longtermism (cf. https://www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.html#longtermism).

However, I think the a... (read more)

Can preference utilitarians, classical utilitarians and negative utilitarians hammer out some kind of cosmological policy consensus? Not ideal by anyone's lights, but good enough? So long as we don't create more experience below "hedonic zero" in our forward light-cone, NUs are untroubled by wildly differing outcomes. There is clearly a tension between preference utilitarianism and classical utilitarianism; but most(?) preference utilitarians are relaxed about having hedonic ranges shifted upwards - perhaps even radically upwards - if recalibrati... (read more)

Eli, sorry, could you elaborate? Thanks!

Eli, fair point.

Eli, it's too quick to dismiss placing moral value on all conscious creatures as "very warm-and-fuzzy". If we're psychologising, then we might equally say that working towards the well-being of all sentience reflects the cognitive style of a rule-bound hyper-systematiser. No, chickens aren't going to win any Fields medals - though chickens can recognise logical relationships and perform transitive inferences (cf. the "pecking order"). But nonhuman animals can still experience states of extreme distress. Uncontrolled panic, for example... (read more)

"Health is a state of complete [sic] physical, mental and social well-being": the World Health Organization definition of health. Knb, I don't doubt that sometimes you're right. But Is phasing out the biology of involuntary suffering really too "extreme" - any more than radical life-extension or radical intelligence-amplification? When talking to anyone new to transhumanism, I try also to make the most compelling case I can for radical superlongevity and extreme superintelligence - biological, Kurzweilian and MIRI conceptions alike. Ye... (read more)

This is a difficult question. By analogy, should rich cannibals or human child abusers be legally permitted to indulge their pleasures if they offset the harm they cause with sufficiently large charitable donations to orphanages or children's charities elsewhere? On (indirect) utilitarian grounds if nothing else, we would all(?) favour an absolute legal prohibition on cannibalism and human child abuse. This analogy breaks down if the neuroscientfic evidence suggesting that pigs, for example, are at least as sentient as prelinguistic human toddlers turns out to be mistaken. I'm deeply pessimistic this is the case.

Could you possibly say a bit more about why the mirror test is inadequate as a test of possession of a self-concept? Either way, making self-awareness a precondition of moral status has troubling implications. For example, consider what happens to verbally competent adults when feelings intense fear turn into uncontrollable panic. In states of "blind" panic, reflective self-awareness and the capacity for any kind of meta-cognition is lost. Panic disorder is extraordinarily unpleasant. Are we to make the claim that such panic-ridden states aren't ... (read more)

Birds lack a neocortex. But members of at least one species, the European magpie, have convincingly passed the "mirror test" [cf. "Mirror-Induced Behavior in the Magpie (Pica pica): Evidence of Self-Recognition" http://www.plosbiology.org/article/fetchObject.action?representation=PDF&uri=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.0060202] Most ethologists recognise passing the mirror test as evidence of a self-concept. As well as higher primates (chimpanzees, orang utans, bonobos, gorillas) members of other species who have passed the mirror tes... (read more)

Lumifer, should the charge of "mind-killers" be levelled at anti-speciesists or meat-eaters? (If you were being ironic, apologies for being so literal-minded.)

Larks, by analogy, could a racist acknowledge that, other things being equal, conscious beings of equivalent sentience deserve equal care and respect, but race is one of the things that has to be equal? If you think the "other things being equal" caveat dilutes the definition of speciesism so it's worthless, perhaps drop it - I was just trying to spike some guns.

Larks, all humans, even anencephalic babies, are more sentient than all Anopheles mosquitoes. So when human interests conflict irreconcilably with the interests of Anopheles mosquitoes, there is no need to conduct a careful case-by-case study of their comparative sentience. Simply identifying species membership alone is enough. By contrast, most pigs are more sentient than some humans. Unlike the antispeciesist, the speciesist claims that the interests of the human take precedence over the interests of the pig simply in virtue of species membership. (cf. h... (read more)

Vanvier, you say that you wouldn't be averse to a quick end for young human children who are not going to live to see their third birthday. What about intellectually handicapped children with potentially normal lifespans whose cognitive capacities will never surpass a typical human toddler or mature pig?

Vanvier, do human infants and toddlers deserve moral consideration primarily on account of their potential to become rational adult humans? Or are they valuable in themselves? Young human children with genetic disorders are given love, care and respect - even if the nature of their illness means they will never live to see their third birthday. We don't hold their lack of "potential" against them. Likewise, pigs are never going to acquire generative syntax or do calculus. But their lack of cognitive sophistication doesn't make them any less sentient.

jkaufman, the dimmer-switch metaphor of consciousness is intuitively appealing. But consider some of the most intense experiences that humans can undergo, e.g. orgasm, raw agony, or blind panic. Such intense experiences are characterised by a breakdown of any capacity for abstract rational thought or reflective self-awareness. Neuroscanning evidence, too, suggests that much of our higher brain function effectively shuts down during the experience of panic or orgasm. Contrast this intensity of feeling with the subtle and rarefied phenomenology involved in e... (read more)

Obamacare for elephants probably doesn't rank highly in the priorities of most lesswrongers. But from an anthropocentric perspective, isn't an analogous scenario for human beings - i.e. to stay free living but not "wild" - the most utopian outcome if the MIRI conception of an Intelligence Explosion comes to pass?

RobbBB, in what sense can phenomenal agony be an "illusion"? If your pain becomes so bad that abstract thought is impossible, does your agony - or the "illusion of agony" - somehow stop? The same genes, same neurotransmitters, same anatomical pathways and same behavioural responses to noxious stimuli are found in humans and the nonhuman animals in our factory-farms. A reasonable (but unproven) inference is that factory-farmed nonhumans endure misery - or the "illusion of misery" as the eliminativist puts it - as do abused human infants and toddlers.

drnickbone, the argument that meat-eating can be ethically justified if conditions of factory-farmed animals are improved so their lives are "barely" worth living is problematic. As it stands, the argument justifies human cannibalism. Breeding human babies for the pot is potentially ethically justified because the infants in question wouldn't otherwise exist - although they are factory- farmed, runs this thought-experiment, their lives are at least "barely" worth living because they don't self-mutilate or show the grosser signs of psychological trauma. No, I'm sure you don't buy this argument - but then we shouldn't buy it for nonhuman animals either.

Indeed so. Factory-farmed nonhuman animals are debeaked, tail-docked, castrated (etc) to prevent them from mutilating themselves and each other. Self-mutilitary behaviour in particular suggests an extraordinarily severe level of chronic distress. Compare how desperate human beings must be before we self-mutilate. A meat-eater can (correctly) respond that the behavioural and neuroscientific evidence that factory-farmed animals suffer a lot is merely suggestive, not conclusive. But we're not trying to defeat philosophical scepticism, just act on the best available evidence. Humans who persuade ourselves that factory-farmed animals are happy are simply kidding ourselves - we're trying to rationalise the ethically indefensible.

SaidAchmiz, to treat exploiting and killing nonhuman animals as ethically no different from "exploiting and killing ore-bearing rocks" does not suggest a cognitively ambitious level of empathetic understanding of other subjects of experience. Isn't there an irony in belonging to an organisation dedicated to the plight of sentient but cognitively humble beings in the imminent face of vastly superior intelligence and claiming that the plight of sentient but cognitively humble beings in the face of vastly superior intelligence is of no ethical conse... (read more)

SaidAchmiz, one difference between factory farming and the Holocaust is that the Nazis believed in the existence of an international conspiracy of the Jews to destroy the Aryan people. Humanity's only justification of exploiting and killing nonhuman animals is that we enjoy the taste of their flesh. No one believes that factory-farmed nonhuman animals have done "us" any harm. Perhaps the parallel with the (human) Holocaust fails for another reason. Pigs, for example, are at least as intelligent as prelinguistic toddlers; but are they less sentien... (read more)

Yes, assuming post-Everett quantum mechanics, our continued existence needn't be interpreted as evidence that Mutually Assured Destruction works, but rather as an anthropic selection effect. It's unclear why (at least in our family of branches) Hugh Everett, who certainly took his own thesis seriously, spent much of his later life working for the Pentagon targeting thermonuclear weaponry on cities. For Everett must have realised that in countless world-branches, such weapons would actually be used. Either way, the idea that Mutually Assured Destruction works could prove ethically catastrophic this century if taken seriously.

Ice9, perhaps consider uncontrollable panic. Some of the most intense forms of sentience that humans undergo seem to be associated with a breakdown of meta-cognitive capacity. So let's hope that what it's like to be an asphyxiating fish, for example, doesn't remotely resemble what it feels like to be a waterboarded human. I worry that our intuitive dimmer-switch model of consciousness, i.e. more intelligent = more sentient, may turn out to be mistaken.

Elharo, which is more interesting? Wireheading - or "the interaction among conflicting values and competing entities that makes the world interesting, fun, and worth living"? Yes, I agree, the latter certainly sounds more exciting; but "from the inside", quite the reverse. Wireheading is always enthralling, whereas everyday life is often humdrum. Likewise with so-called utilitronium. To humans, utilitronium sounds unimaginably dull and monotonous, but "from the inside" it presumably feels sublime.

However, we don't need to choo... (read more)

Elharo, I take your point, but surely we do want humans to enjoy healthy lives free from hunger and disease and safe from parasites and predators? Utopian technology promises similar blessings to nonhuman sentients too. Human and nonhuman animals alike typically flourish best when free- living but not "wild".

Eugine, in answer to your question: yes. If we are committed to the well-being of all sentience in our forward light-cone, then we can't simultaneously conserve predators in their existing guise. (cf. http://www.abolitionist.com/reprogramming/index.html) Humans are not obligate carnivores; and the in vitro meat revolution may shortly make this debate redundant; but it's questionable whether posthuman superintelligence committed to the well-being of all sentience could conserve humans in their existing guise either.

SaidAchmiz, you're right. The issue isn't settled: I wish it were so. The Transhumanist Declaration (1998, 2009) of the World Transhumanist Association / Humanity Plus does express a non-anthropocentric commitment to the well-being of all sentience. ["We advocate the well-being of all sentience, including humans, non-human animals, and any future artificial intellects, modified life forms, or other intelligences to which technological and scientific advance may give rise" : http://humanityplus.org/philosophy/transhumanist-declaration/] But I wonder what percentage of lesswrongers would support such a far-reaching statement?

SaidAchmiz, I wonder if a more revealing question would be to ask if / when in vitro meat products of equivalent taste and price hit the market, will you switch? Lesswrong readers tend not to be technophobes, so I assume the majority(?) of lesswrongers who are not already vegetarian will make the transition. However, you say above that you are "not interested in reducing the suffering of animals". Do you mean that you are literally indifferent one way or the other to nonhuman animal suffering - in which case presumably you won't bother changing to the cruelty-free alternative? Or do you mean merely that you don't consider nonhuman animal suffering important?

Eliezer, is that the right way to do the maths? If a high-status opinion-former publicly signals that he's quitting meat because it's ethically indefensible, then others are more likely to follow suit - and the chain-reaction continues. For sure, studies purportedly showing longer lifespans, higher IQs etc of vegetarians aren't very impressive because there are too many possible confounding variables. But what such studies surely do illustrate is that any health-benefits of meat-eating vs vegetarianism, if they exist, must be exceedingly subtle. Either way... (read more)

Tim, perhaps I'm mistaken; you know lesswrongers better than me. But in any such poll I'd also want to ask respondents who believe the USA is a unitary subject of experience whether they believe such a conjecture is consistent with reductive physicalism?

Wedrifid, yes, if Schwitzgebel's conjecture were true, then farewell to reductive physicalism and the ontological unity of science. The USA is a "zombie". Its functionally interconnected but skull-bound minds are individually conscious; and sometimes the behaviour of the USA as a whole is amenable to functional description; but the USA not a unitary subject of experience. However, the problem with relying on this intuitive response is that the phenomenology of our own minds seems to entail exactly the sort of strong ontological emergence we're ex... (read more)

Huh, yes, in my view C. elegans is a P-zombie. If we grant reductive physicalism, the primitive nervous system of C. elegans can't support a unitary subject of experience. At most, its individual ganglia (cf. http://www.sfu.ca/biology/faculty/hutter/hutterlab/research/Ce_nervous_system.html) may be endowed with the rudiments of unitary consciousness. But otherwise, C. elegans can effectively be modelled classically. Most of us probably wouldn't agree with philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel. ("If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious&... (read more)

Alas so. IMO a solution to the phenomenal binding problem (cf. http://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/body_and_health/Neurology/Binding.pdf) is critical to understanding the evolutionary success of organic robots over the past 540 million years - and why classical digital computers are (and will remain) insentient zombies, not unitary minds. This conjecture may be false; but it has the virtue of being testable. If / when our experimental apparatus allows probing the CNS at the sub-picosecond timescales above which Max Tegmark ("Why the brain is probably not... (read more)

Cruelty-free in vitro meat can potentially replace the flesh of all sentient beings currently used for food. Yes, it's more efficient; it also makes high-tech Jainism less of a pipedream.

I disagree with Peter Singer here. So I'm not best placed to argue his position. But Singer is acutely sensitive to the potential risks of any notion of lives not worth living. Recall Singer lost three of his grandparents in the Holocaust. Let's just say it's not obvious that an incurable victim of, say, infantile Tay–Sachs disease, who is going do die around four years old after a chronic pain-ridden existence, is better off alive. We can't ask this question to the victim: the nature of the disorder means s/he is not cognitively competent to understand th... (read more)

Nornagest, fair point. See too "The Brain Functional Networks Associated to Human and Animal Suffering Differ among Omnivores, Vegetarians and Vegans" : http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0010847

Eugine, are you doing Peter Singer justice? What motivates Singer's position isn't a range of empathetic concern that's stunted in comparsion to people who favour the universal sanctity of human life. Rather it's a different conception of the threshold below which a life is not worth living. We find similar debates over the so-called "Logic of the Larder" for factory-farmed non-human animals: http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/salt02.htm. Actually, one may agree with Singer - both his utilitarian ethics and bleak diagnosis of some human... (read more)

On (indirect) utilitarian grounds, we may make a strong case that enshrining the sanctity of life in law will lead to better consequences than legalising infanticide. So I disagree with Singer here. But I'm not sure Singer's willingness to defend infanticide as (sometimes) the lesser evil is a counterexample to the broad sweep of the generalisation of the expanding circle. We're not talking about some Iron Law of Moral Progress.

The growth of science has led to a decline in animism. So in one sense, our sphere of concern has narrowed. But within the sphere of sentience, I think Singer and Pinker are broadly correct. Also, utopian technology makes even the weakest forms of benevolence vastly more effective. Consider, say, vaccination. Even if, pessimistically, one doesn't foresee any net growth in empathetic concern, technology increasingly makes the costs of benevolence trivial.

[Once again, I'm not addressing here the prospect of hypothetical paperclippers - just mind-reading humans with a pain-pleasure (dis)value axis.]

an expanding circle of empathetic concern needn't reflect a net gain in compassion. Naively, one might imagine that e.g. vegans are more compassionate than vegetarians. But I know of no evidence this is the case. Tellingly, female vegetarians outnumber male vegetarians by around 2:1, but the ratio of male to female vegans is roughly equal. So an expanding circle may reflect our reduced tolerance of inconsistency / cognitive dissonance. Men are more likely to be utilitarian hyper-systematisers.