I appreciate that you went through the effort of sharing your thoughts, and as some commenters have noted, I also find the topic interesting. Still, you do not seem to have laid bare your assumptions that guide your models, and when examined it seems most of your musings seem to miss essential aspects of valence as experienced in our universe. I will be examining this question through the lens of total utilitarian consequentialism, where you sum the integral of valences of all lives over the lifespan of the universe. Do specify if you were using another framework.
When you conclude “Bad feelings are vastly less important than saved lives.”, it seems you imply that 1) Over time our lives will always get better (or positive) 2) That there’s always enough time left in the universe to contribute more good than bad. (You could otherwise be implying that life is good in of itself, but that seems too wrong to discuss much, and I don’t expect you would value someone suffering 100 years and then dying as better than someone dying straight away). In a S-risk scenario, most lives suffer until heath death, and keeping those lives alive is worse than not, so 1 is not always true. 2 also doesn’t hold in scenarios where a life is tortured for half of the universe’s lifespan (supposing positive valence is symmetrical to negative valence). It is only when considering there’s always infinite time left that you could be so bold as to say keeping people alive through suffering is always worth it, but that’s not the case of our universe.
More fundamentally, you don’t seem to be taking into account yet non existing people/lives into account, the limited nature of our universe in time and accessible space, or the fungibility of accumulated valence. Suppose A lives 100 years happy, dies, and then B lives 100 years happy, it seems there’s as much experienced positive valence in the universe as having had A around happy for 200 years. You call it a great shame that someone should die, but once they’re dead they are not contributing negative valence, and there is space for new lives that contribute positive valence. Thus, it seems that if someone was fated to suffer a 100 years, it would be better they die now, and that someone else is born and lives 100 years happy, than trying to keep that original life around and making them live 200 years happy after the fact to compensate. Why should we care that the positive valence is experienced by a specific life and not another ? In our world, there are negative things associated with death, such as age related ill heath (generally with negative valence associated), and negative feelings from knowing someone has died (because it changes our habits, we lose something we liked), so it would cause less suffering if we solved ageing and death. But there is no specific factor in the utility function marking death as bad.
With these explanations of the total utility point of view, do you agree that a large amount of suffering (for example over half the lifespan of the universe) IS worse than death?
I appreciate that you went through the effort of sharing your thoughts, and as some commenters have noted, I also find the topic interesting. Still, you do not seem to have laid bare your assumptions that guide your models, and when examined it seems most of your musings seem to miss essential aspects of valence as experienced in our universe. I will be examining this question through the lens of total utilitarian consequentialism, where you sum the integral of valences of all lives over the lifespan of the universe. Do specify if you were using another framework.
When you conclude “Bad feelings are vastly less important than saved lives.”, it seems you imply that
1) Over time our lives will always get better (or positive)
2) That there’s always enough time left in the universe to contribute more good than bad.
(You could otherwise be implying that life is good in of itself, but that seems too wrong to discuss much, and I don’t expect you would value someone suffering 100 years and then dying as better than someone dying straight away).
In a S-risk scenario, most lives suffer until heath death, and keeping those lives alive is worse than not, so 1 is not always true. 2 also doesn’t hold in scenarios where a life is tortured for half of the universe’s lifespan (supposing positive valence is symmetrical to negative valence). It is only when considering there’s always infinite time left that you could be so bold as to say keeping people alive through suffering is always worth it, but that’s not the case of our universe.
More fundamentally, you don’t seem to be taking into account yet non existing people/lives into account, the limited nature of our universe in time and accessible space, or the fungibility of accumulated valence. Suppose A lives 100 years happy, dies, and then B lives 100 years happy, it seems there’s as much experienced positive valence in the universe as having had A around happy for 200 years. You call it a great shame that someone should die, but once they’re dead they are not contributing negative valence, and there is space for new lives that contribute positive valence. Thus, it seems that if someone was fated to suffer a 100 years, it would be better they die now, and that someone else is born and lives 100 years happy, than trying to keep that original life around and making them live 200 years happy after the fact to compensate. Why should we care that the positive valence is experienced by a specific life and not another ?
In our world, there are negative things associated with death, such as age related ill heath (generally with negative valence associated), and negative feelings from knowing someone has died (because it changes our habits, we lose something we liked), so it would cause less suffering if we solved ageing and death. But there is no specific factor in the utility function marking death as bad.
With these explanations of the total utility point of view, do you agree that a large amount of suffering (for example over half the lifespan of the universe) IS worse than death?