Yes! To clarify further, by “mentally deficient” in this context I would typically mean “confused” or “insane” (as in not thinking clearly), but I would not necessarily mean “stupid” in some other more generally applicable sense.
And thank you for your fair attempt at understanding the opposing argument.
So that means the decrease in suffering isn’t fully intentional. That is all I need to argue against humans.
Surely it’s not a mark against humans (collectively or even individually) if some reduction in suffering occurs as a by-product of some actions we take in the service of other ends?
True, it would be fine if these other actions wouldn’t lead to more suffering in the future.
Indeed it’s not clear to me what you mean by this phrase “an instance of pleasure [or suffering] in spacetime”; it’s a rather unusual formulation, isn’t it?
(...) but perhaps this is only an idiosyncratic turn of phrase. Could you clarify?
Yes you are right that it is an unusual formulation, but there is a point to it: An instance of suffering or pleasure “existing” means there is some concrete “configuration” (of a consciousness) within reality/spacetime that is this instance.
These instances being real means that they should be as objectively definable and understandable as other observables.
Theoretically, with sufficient understanding and tools, it should consequently even be possible to “construct” such instances, including the rest of consciousness.
If you’re asking, for example, whether, for some amount of suffering S, there exists some amount of pleasure P, such that a life with at at most S amount of suffering and at least P amount of pleasure is also thereby at least as good as a life with no suffering and no pleasure—well, that would be, at least in part, an empirical question about the psychology of specific sorts of beings (e.g., humans), and perhaps even about the individual psychological makeup of particular such beings.
This assumption that any amount of P can “justify” some amount of S is a reason for why I brought up the “suffering-apologetics” moniker.
Here’s the thing: The instances of P and S are separate instances. These instances themselves are also not the same as some other thought pattern that rationalizes some amount of S as acceptable relative to some (future) amount of P.
More generally, say we have two minds, M1 and M2 (so two subjects).
Two minds can be very different, of course.
Next, let us consider the states of both minds at two different times, t1 and t2.
The state of either mind can also be very different at t1 and t2, right?
So we have the four states M1t1, M1t2, M2t1, M2t2 and all four can be quite different from each other.
Now this means that for example M1t1 and M2t2 could in theory be more similar than M1t1 and M1t2.
The point is, even though we humans so easily consider a mind as one thing across time, this is only an abstraction.
It should not be confused with reality, in which there have to be different states across time for there to be any change, and these states can vary potentially as much or more as two spatially separate minds can.
Of course typically mind states across time don’t change that severely, but that is not the aforementioned point. Different states with small differences are still different.
An implication of this is that one mind state condoning another suffering mind state for expected future pleasure is “morally” quite like one person condoning the suffering of another for expected future pleasure.
At this point an objection along the line “but it is I that willingly accepts my own suffering for future pleasure in that first case!” and “but my ‘suffering mind state’ doesn’t complain!” may be brought up.
But this also works for spatially separate minds. One person can willingly accept their own suffering for the future pleasure of another person. And also one person may not complain about the suffering caused by another person for that other person’s pleasure.
Furthermore, in either case, the part that “willingly accepts” is again not the part that is suffering, so it doesn’t make this any less bad.
Thinking that pleasure in the future can somehow magically affect or “make good” the suffering in the immutable past (...)
(...) but it’s also not one that anyone holds, who’s thought about it seriously—do you disagree?
No, I phrased that poorly, so with this precise wording I don’t disagree.
I more generally meant something like the ”… such that a life with at at most S amount of suffering and at least P amount of pleasure is also thereby at least as good as a life with no suffering and no pleasure …” part, not the explicit belief that the past could be altered.
I phrased it as I did because the immutability of the past implies that summing up pleasure and suffering to decide whether a life is good or bad is nonsensical, because pleasure and suffering are separate, as reasoned in the prior section.
Another is that you—being, after all, a flawed human yourself—are mistaken about metaethics (moral realism), ethics (the purported content of the true morality), and any number of other things. If that is the case, then creating an AGI that destroys humanity is, to put it mildly, very bad.
Certainly! That’s one good reason for why I seek out discussions with people that disagree. To this day no one has been able to convince me that my core arguments can be broken. Terminology and formulations have been easier to attack of course, but don’t scratch the underlying belief. And so I have to act based on what I have to assume is true, as do we all.
It could actually be very good if I were wrong, because that would mean suffering either somehow isn’t actually/”objectively” worse than “nothing”/neutral, or that it could be mitigated somehow through future pleasure, or perhaps everything would somehow be totally objectively neutral and thus never negative (like the guy in the other response thread here argued).
Any of that would make everything way easier.
But unfortunately none of these ideas can be true, as argued.
Yes! To clarify further, by “mentally deficient” in this context I would typically mean “confused” or “insane” (as in not thinking clearly), but I would not necessarily mean “stupid” in some other more generally applicable sense.
And thank you for your fair attempt at understanding the opposing argument.
True, it would be fine if these other actions wouldn’t lead to more suffering in the future.
Yes you are right that it is an unusual formulation, but there is a point to it: An instance of suffering or pleasure “existing” means there is some concrete “configuration” (of a consciousness) within reality/spacetime that is this instance.
These instances being real means that they should be as objectively definable and understandable as other observables.
Theoretically, with sufficient understanding and tools, it should consequently even be possible to “construct” such instances, including the rest of consciousness.
This assumption that any amount of P can “justify” some amount of S is a reason for why I brought up the “suffering-apologetics” moniker.
Here’s the thing: The instances of P and S are separate instances. These instances themselves are also not the same as some other thought pattern that rationalizes some amount of S as acceptable relative to some (future) amount of P.
More generally, say we have two minds, M1 and M2 (so two subjects). Two minds can be very different, of course. Next, let us consider the states of both minds at two different times, t1 and t2. The state of either mind can also be very different at t1 and t2, right?
So we have the four states M1t1, M1t2, M2t1, M2t2 and all four can be quite different from each other. Now this means that for example M1t1 and M2t2 could in theory be more similar than M1t1 and M1t2.
The point is, even though we humans so easily consider a mind as one thing across time, this is only an abstraction. It should not be confused with reality, in which there have to be different states across time for there to be any change, and these states can vary potentially as much or more as two spatially separate minds can.
Of course typically mind states across time don’t change that severely, but that is not the aforementioned point. Different states with small differences are still different.
An implication of this is that one mind state condoning another suffering mind state for expected future pleasure is “morally” quite like one person condoning the suffering of another for expected future pleasure.
At this point an objection along the line “but it is I that willingly accepts my own suffering for future pleasure in that first case!” and “but my ‘suffering mind state’ doesn’t complain!” may be brought up.
But this also works for spatially separate minds. One person can willingly accept their own suffering for the future pleasure of another person. And also one person may not complain about the suffering caused by another person for that other person’s pleasure.
Furthermore, in either case, the part that “willingly accepts” is again not the part that is suffering, so it doesn’t make this any less bad.
No, I phrased that poorly, so with this precise wording I don’t disagree.
I more generally meant something like the ”… such that a life with at at most S amount of suffering and at least P amount of pleasure is also thereby at least as good as a life with no suffering and no pleasure …” part, not the explicit belief that the past could be altered.
I phrased it as I did because the immutability of the past implies that summing up pleasure and suffering to decide whether a life is good or bad is nonsensical, because pleasure and suffering are separate, as reasoned in the prior section.
Certainly! That’s one good reason for why I seek out discussions with people that disagree. To this day no one has been able to convince me that my core arguments can be broken. Terminology and formulations have been easier to attack of course, but don’t scratch the underlying belief. And so I have to act based on what I have to assume is true, as do we all.
It could actually be very good if I were wrong, because that would mean suffering either somehow isn’t actually/”objectively” worse than “nothing”/neutral, or that it could be mitigated somehow through future pleasure, or perhaps everything would somehow be totally objectively neutral and thus never negative (like the guy in the other response thread here argued). Any of that would make everything way easier. But unfortunately none of these ideas can be true, as argued.