exogenous driving of a fraction of cortical tissue to result in suffering of the subjects
My reason is that suffering in general seems related to [intentions pushing hard, but with no traction or hope]. A subspecies of that is [multiple drives pushing hard against each other, with nobody pulling the rope sideways]. A new subspecies would be “I’m trying to get my brain tissue to do something, but it’s being externally driven, so I’m just scrabbling my hands futilely against a sheer blank cliff wall.” and “Bits of my mind are being shredded because I create them successfully by living and demanding stuff of my brain, but the the bits are exogenously driven / retrained and forget to do what I made them to do.”.
Really hard to know without more research on the subject.
My subjective impression from working with mice and rats is that there isn’t a strong negative reaction to having bits of their cortex stimulated in various ways (electrodes, optogenetics).
Unlike, say, experiments where we test their startle reaction by placing them in a small cage with a motion sensor and then playing a loud startling sound. They hate that!
FWIW, I wouldn’t expect the exogenous driving of a fraction of cortical tissue to result in suffering of the subjects.
I do agree that having humanized neurons being driven in human thought patterns makes it weird from an ethical standpoint.
My reason is that suffering in general seems related to [intentions pushing hard, but with no traction or hope]. A subspecies of that is [multiple drives pushing hard against each other, with nobody pulling the rope sideways]. A new subspecies would be “I’m trying to get my brain tissue to do something, but it’s being externally driven, so I’m just scrabbling my hands futilely against a sheer blank cliff wall.” and “Bits of my mind are being shredded because I create them successfully by living and demanding stuff of my brain, but the the bits are exogenously driven / retrained and forget to do what I made them to do.”.
Really hard to know without more research on the subject.
My subjective impression from working with mice and rats is that there isn’t a strong negative reaction to having bits of their cortex stimulated in various ways (electrodes, optogenetics).
Unlike, say, experiments where we test their startle reaction by placing them in a small cage with a motion sensor and then playing a loud startling sound. They hate that!