Maybe something like “would you take a pill that turned you into a p-zombie?” captures part of whether someone wants to live their life for its own sake. This eliminates a bunch of confounders for suicide.
However, there are further confounders. I can imagine a state where I’d be pretty indifferent to staying alive but I stay alive out of curiosity. As an analogy, I’m pretty good at lucid dreaming and during nightmares I often know that I can wake up at will or turn the dream into a lucid dream. Sometimes I stay in the dream even though the dream is very scary and unpleasant out of curiosity about what happens. In these instances, I wouldn’t say that the dream is positive but curiosity is what keeps me in it to “go see the monster” (and then bail).
p-zombies are non-physical; there’s no way to have a brain and be a p-zombie. cite, eg, the recent dissolving the consciousness question post, I believe “ec theory” is the appropriate keyword.
how can it be negative if you have working reflection, get the opportunity to partially weigh which outcome is more choiceworthy, and choose to continue? it doesn’t seem to me that this invalidates the framework in my previous post. again, I contend that your confusion is to narrowly evaluate a hedonic metric as though it is your true value function, when in fact the value function induced by your long term hedonic seeking appears to rank the choice the same way it’s made. of course, you could argue that for many people, it would be kinder to kill them in violation of their behaviorally expressed preference because their revealed preference for life does not truly match their internal “hedonic” waste; for example, if someone spends their entire life whimpering in the corner, appears to be in immense pain, barely gets through the actions necessary to survive—how could that ever warrant killing them? it seems to me that this is the same kind of reasoning used to justify atrocities.
p-zombies are non-physical; there’s no way to have a brain and be a p-zombie. cite, eg, the recent dissolving the consciousness question post, I believe “ec theory” is the appropriate keyword.
I agree with the view that p-zombies are non-physical. The thought experiment was just trying to isolate potential confounders like “what would friends/family/etc think?” and “what about the altruistic impact I could continue to have?” If the thing about p-zombies is distracting, you could imagine a version of the thought experiment where these other variables are isolated in a different way.
how can it be negative if you have working reflection, get the opportunity to partially weigh which outcome is more choiceworthy, and choose to continue?
I don’t know if what you call “choiceworthy” is the same thing as I have in mind when I think about the example. I’m now going to explain how I think about it. First off, I note that it’s possible to simultaneously selfishly wish that one would be dead but stay alive for altruistic reasons (either near-mode altruism towards people one has relationships with or far-mode altruism towards effective altruist efforts). Also, it’s possible for people to want to stay alive for paradoxical “face saving” reasons rather than out of a judgment that life is worthwhile.Shame is a powerful motivator and if the thought of committing suicide in your early years may feel like too much of a failure compared to just getting by in a socially isolated way, then staying alive could become the lesser of two evils. On this view, you think about your life not just in terms of enjoying lived experiences, but also about your status and the legacy you leave behind. Some of the worst suffering I can imagine is wanting to commit suicide but feeling like it would be too much of an admission of failure to do it.
In all these examples, my point is that whether to stay alive is a decision with multiple components, some sum positively, others negatively. And sure, if you decide to stay alive, then the “sum” is positive. But what is it the sum of? It’s the sum of how staying alive ranks according to your goals, not the sum of how good your life is for you on your subjective evaluation. Those are different! (How good your life is for you on your subjective evaluation is almost always a part of the total sum, but it need not be the only component in the calculation.)
For more thoughts on how I reason about goals, see this post.
again, I contend that your confusion is to narrowly evaluate a hedonic metric as though it is your true value function, when in fact the value function induced by your long term hedonic seeking appears to rank the choice the same way it’s made.
I’d characterize our disagreement a bit differently. I’d say that you narrowly assume that people’s value functions tell us the value of a life, whereas I think value functions tell us what the person cares about, which can include caring about one’s own life quality, but may also include other things. To assess what makes a person better off, instead of asking how I can make the world better according to that person’s goals, I have to isolate the components of a person value function that concern the quality of her own life.
of course, you could argue that for many people, it would be kinder to kill them in violation of their behaviorally expressed preference because their revealed preference for life does not truly match their internal “hedonic” waste; for example, if someone spends their entire life whimpering in the corner, appears to be in immense pain, barely gets through the actions necessary to survive—how could that ever warrant killing them? it seems to me that this is the same kind of reasoning used to justify atrocities.
I didn’t argue for killing anyone against their will. I’m with you that this would be wrong. I think we disagree about why it would be wrong. You’re saying it would be wrong because the person still has a positive life quality. By contrast, I’m saying it would be wrong because you’d violate the person’s all-things-considered goals. (In specific scenarios, you can imagine that killing someone against their will would be hedonically-altruistic towards the part of the person that experiences life, but simultaneously extremely disrespectful of their agency and what they live for and still want to achieve in life.)
this was a good discussion! to be clear I didn’t think you’d endorsed the lethality implications, I brought that up because it seemed to be nearby in implication of philosophical approach. I tend to get a bit passionate when I feel a dangerous implication is nearby, I apologize for my overly assertive tone (unfortunately an apology I make quite often).
I think your points in this reply are interesting in a way I don’t have immediate response to. It does seem that we’ve reached a level of explanation that demonstrates you’re making a solid point that I can’t immediately find fault with.
Maybe something like “would you take a pill that turned you into a p-zombie?” captures part of whether someone wants to live their life for its own sake. This eliminates a bunch of confounders for suicide.
However, there are further confounders. I can imagine a state where I’d be pretty indifferent to staying alive but I stay alive out of curiosity. As an analogy, I’m pretty good at lucid dreaming and during nightmares I often know that I can wake up at will or turn the dream into a lucid dream. Sometimes I stay in the dream even though the dream is very scary and unpleasant out of curiosity about what happens. In these instances, I wouldn’t say that the dream is positive but curiosity is what keeps me in it to “go see the monster” (and then bail).
p-zombies are non-physical; there’s no way to have a brain and be a p-zombie. cite, eg, the recent dissolving the consciousness question post, I believe “ec theory” is the appropriate keyword.
how can it be negative if you have working reflection, get the opportunity to partially weigh which outcome is more choiceworthy, and choose to continue? it doesn’t seem to me that this invalidates the framework in my previous post. again, I contend that your confusion is to narrowly evaluate a hedonic metric as though it is your true value function, when in fact the value function induced by your long term hedonic seeking appears to rank the choice the same way it’s made. of course, you could argue that for many people, it would be kinder to kill them in violation of their behaviorally expressed preference because their revealed preference for life does not truly match their internal “hedonic” waste; for example, if someone spends their entire life whimpering in the corner, appears to be in immense pain, barely gets through the actions necessary to survive—how could that ever warrant killing them? it seems to me that this is the same kind of reasoning used to justify atrocities.
I agree with the view that p-zombies are non-physical. The thought experiment was just trying to isolate potential confounders like “what would friends/family/etc think?” and “what about the altruistic impact I could continue to have?” If the thing about p-zombies is distracting, you could imagine a version of the thought experiment where these other variables are isolated in a different way.
I don’t know if what you call “choiceworthy” is the same thing as I have in mind when I think about the example. I’m now going to explain how I think about it. First off, I note that it’s possible to simultaneously selfishly wish that one would be dead but stay alive for altruistic reasons (either near-mode altruism towards people one has relationships with or far-mode altruism towards effective altruist efforts). Also, it’s possible for people to want to stay alive for paradoxical “face saving” reasons rather than out of a judgment that life is worthwhile.Shame is a powerful motivator and if the thought of committing suicide in your early years may feel like too much of a failure compared to just getting by in a socially isolated way, then staying alive could become the lesser of two evils. On this view, you think about your life not just in terms of enjoying lived experiences, but also about your status and the legacy you leave behind. Some of the worst suffering I can imagine is wanting to commit suicide but feeling like it would be too much of an admission of failure to do it.
In all these examples, my point is that whether to stay alive is a decision with multiple components, some sum positively, others negatively. And sure, if you decide to stay alive, then the “sum” is positive. But what is it the sum of? It’s the sum of how staying alive ranks according to your goals, not the sum of how good your life is for you on your subjective evaluation. Those are different! (How good your life is for you on your subjective evaluation is almost always a part of the total sum, but it need not be the only component in the calculation.)
For more thoughts on how I reason about goals, see this post.
I’d characterize our disagreement a bit differently. I’d say that you narrowly assume that people’s value functions tell us the value of a life, whereas I think value functions tell us what the person cares about, which can include caring about one’s own life quality, but may also include other things. To assess what makes a person better off, instead of asking how I can make the world better according to that person’s goals, I have to isolate the components of a person value function that concern the quality of her own life.
I didn’t argue for killing anyone against their will. I’m with you that this would be wrong. I think we disagree about why it would be wrong. You’re saying it would be wrong because the person still has a positive life quality. By contrast, I’m saying it would be wrong because you’d violate the person’s all-things-considered goals. (In specific scenarios, you can imagine that killing someone against their will would be hedonically-altruistic towards the part of the person that experiences life, but simultaneously extremely disrespectful of their agency and what they live for and still want to achieve in life.)
this was a good discussion! to be clear I didn’t think you’d endorsed the lethality implications, I brought that up because it seemed to be nearby in implication of philosophical approach. I tend to get a bit passionate when I feel a dangerous implication is nearby, I apologize for my overly assertive tone (unfortunately an apology I make quite often).
I think your points in this reply are interesting in a way I don’t have immediate response to. It does seem that we’ve reached a level of explanation that demonstrates you’re making a solid point that I can’t immediately find fault with.