I wasn't suggesting Westworld was some comprehensive scientific study of the matter. Rather, that it did a decent job exploring the relationship between sufferi

I wasn't suggesting Westworld was some comprehensive scientific study of the matter. Rather, that it did a decent job exploring the relationship between suffering and memory, and some of the complexities that entails. For example, memory wipes intended to reduce suffering inadvertently creating more suffering via the unsettling emotional side effects involved. >Consciousness, and suffering, are biological concepts. Computer code running algorithms on microprocessors aren't going to experience these things. You seem so confident in this being the case. Who is to say cognition cannot exist on silicon? If you accept the supposition that cognition is a requium for emotion, and emotion is a requium for suffering, then a digital organism need not have the pain receptors of its biological counterpart in order to experience suffering.