tcpkac, if a hundred people experiencing 49 years of torture is worse than one person experiencing 50 years, then yes, you can and must compare. Whether you extend this right down to 3^^^3 dust specks is another matter. There might not be a formal framework for something so subjective, but there are obvious inconsistencies with flat refusal to sum, even with something as abstract as ‘pain’. Would an AGI need a formula for summing discomfort over multiple people/one person? Who gets to write that? Yeesh.
a brief moment of irritation, enough to notice for a moment, so at least one pain neuron is firing
I’m not a neurobiologist—is this how it works? Are there neurons whose specific job it is to deliver ‘pain’ messages? If we’re reducing down to this level, can we actually measure pain? More importantly, even if we can, can we go on to assume that there is an ininterrupted progression in the neurological mechanism, all the way up this scale, from dust mote to torture? For me, it’s not clear whether blinking away a dust mote falls under ‘pain’ or ‘sensation’. Nipple piercing is much clearer, and hence I have no problem saying 3^^^3 Piercings > Torture.
tcpkac, if a hundred people experiencing 49 years of torture is worse than one person experiencing 50 years, then yes, you can and must compare. Whether you extend this right down to 3^^^3 dust specks is another matter. There might not be a formal framework for something so subjective, but there are obvious inconsistencies with flat refusal to sum, even with something as abstract as ‘pain’. Would an AGI need a formula for summing discomfort over multiple people/one person? Who gets to write that? Yeesh.
a brief moment of irritation, enough to notice for a moment, so at least one pain neuron is firing
I’m not a neurobiologist—is this how it works? Are there neurons whose specific job it is to deliver ‘pain’ messages? If we’re reducing down to this level, can we actually measure pain? More importantly, even if we can, can we go on to assume that there is an ininterrupted progression in the neurological mechanism, all the way up this scale, from dust mote to torture? For me, it’s not clear whether blinking away a dust mote falls under ‘pain’ or ‘sensation’. Nipple piercing is much clearer, and hence I have no problem saying 3^^^3 Piercings > Torture.