I realized later I had made the error of equating the two, utility and disutility, as part of the same smooth continuum, like [-100, 100] ∈ R. There is no reason to believe the maximum disutility I can experience is equal in magnitude to the maximum utility I can experience.
For evolved beings, I’d expect maximum pain to exceed maximum pleasure in magnitude. For example, the wolf may get pleasure from eating the deer, but the deer may get pain from being killed. But the evolutionary selection pressure is much stronger on the deer in this case. If the wolf loses the fight, it only loses its lunch and can try again later. But if the deer loses the fight, it loses its life. Psychological studies on humans bear this out. We tend to weight negative events four or five times more strongly than positive ones.
torture of future uploads
parallelizing euphoria
You’re mistaken if you assume this imbalance must apply to the space of all possible minds. We know it’s true of unmodified humans. There’s really no reason it must apply to uploads, is there? Your original counterargument was valid.
For evolved beings, I’d expect maximum pain to exceed maximum pleasure in magnitude. For example, the wolf may get pleasure from eating the deer, but the deer may get pain from being killed. But the evolutionary selection pressure is much stronger on the deer in this case. If the wolf loses the fight, it only loses its lunch and can try again later. But if the deer loses the fight, it loses its life. Psychological studies on humans bear this out. We tend to weight negative events four or five times more strongly than positive ones.
You’re mistaken if you assume this imbalance must apply to the space of all possible minds. We know it’s true of unmodified humans. There’s really no reason it must apply to uploads, is there? Your original counterargument was valid.