Some kind of brain scans? Probably not very useful on insects, etc, but would probably work for, say, chickens vs. chimpanzees.
Okay, say you had some kind of nociceptor analysis machine (or, for that matter, whatever you think “pain” will eventually reduce to). Would it count the number of discrete cociceptors or would it measure cociceptor mass? What if we encountered extra-terrestrial life that didn’t have any (of whatever it is that we have reduced “pain” to)? Would they then count for nothing in your moral calculus?
To me, this whole things feels like we are trying to multiply apples by oranges and divide by zebras. Also, it seems problematic from an institutional design perspective, due to poor incentive structure. It would reward those persons that self-modify towards being more utility-monster-like on the margin.
Well, there’s neurologically sophisticated Earthly life with neural organization very different from mammals’, come to that.
I’m not neurologist enough to give an informed account of how an octopus’s brain differs from a rhesus monkey’s, but I’m almost sure its version of nociception would look quite different. Though they’ve got an opioid receptor system, so maybe this is more basal than I thought.
Okay, say you had some kind of nociceptor analysis machine (or, for that matter, whatever you think “pain” will eventually reduce to). Would it count the number of discrete cociceptors or would it measure cociceptor mass? What if we encountered extra-terrestrial life that didn’t have any (of whatever it is that we have reduced “pain” to)? Would they then count for nothing in your moral calculus?
To me, this whole things feels like we are trying to multiply apples by oranges and divide by zebras. Also, it seems problematic from an institutional design perspective, due to poor incentive structure. It would reward those persons that self-modify towards being more utility-monster-like on the margin.
Well, there’s neurologically sophisticated Earthly life with neural organization very different from mammals’, come to that.
I’m not neurologist enough to give an informed account of how an octopus’s brain differs from a rhesus monkey’s, but I’m almost sure its version of nociception would look quite different. Though they’ve got an opioid receptor system, so maybe this is more basal than I thought.