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I feel like you have to believe at least one of these 3: 1) Life is just a chemical reaction, human sadness / happiness don't matter 2) Humans are fundamental

by bugzz 5y ago

I feel like you have to believe at least one of these 3: 1) Life is just a chemical reaction, human sadness / happiness don't matter 2) Humans are fundamentally different than other animals - our pain is somehow more real than animal pain 3) Animal pain does matter. Personally I favor 3)

GuB-42 5y ago
2 is pretty deep actually. And for me, that's the one I favor (though I don't dismiss 3). Humans are fundamentally different because that's us. And even between humans, there is a scale. To me, the only real pain is mine. But, I also have the ability to feel other people's pain, so the pain of people close to me is also real, but less so, it is indirect. To feel pain for a random human requires some active thinking. The further we go, the less real pain is, simply because our brain can't process and mirror it. Animals look a bit like us and show similar pain reaction so we can emphasize somehow. But for everything after plants, we are getting too far. And then, we can introduce computers: can an AI feel pain? How advanced does it have to be if it does? Maybe it is all programs. Unit tests must hurt...
- bugzz 5y ago
  > The further we go, the less real pain is, simply because our brain can't process and mirror it. But from an ethical perspective, the pain of a random person is just as important, right? > Animals look a bit like us and show similar pain reaction so we can emphasize somehow. But for everything after plants, we are getting too far. Animals don't just show similar pain reactions - the biochemical pathways are the exact same. For me, I have to assume basic physical pain is nearly the same, at least for mammals. For plants I don't know. It's possible they have some pain, but I'd expect it to be very different and lesser. For computers I see no reason to think there's any physical pain (though perhaps in the future)

by bugzz 5y ago

GuB-42 5y ago

2 is pretty deep actually. And for me, that's the one I favor (though I don't dismiss 3). Humans are fundamentally different because that's us. And even between humans, there is a scale. To me, the only real pain is mine. But, I also have the ability to feel other people's pain, so the pain of people close to me is also real, but less so, it is indirect. To feel pain for a random human requires some active thinking. The further we go, the less real pain is, simply because our brain can't process and mirror it. Animals look a bit like us and show similar pain reaction so we can emphasize somehow. But for everything after plants, we are getting too far. And then, we can introduce computers: can an AI feel pain? How advanced does it have to be if it does? Maybe it is all programs. Unit tests must hurt...

bugzz 5y ago
> The further we go, the less real pain is, simply because our brain can't process and mirror it. But from an ethical perspective, the pain of a random person is just as important, right? > Animals look a bit like us and show similar pain reaction so we can emphasize somehow. But for everything after plants, we are getting too far. Animals don't just show similar pain reactions - the biochemical pathways are the exact same. For me, I have to assume basic physical pain is nearly the same, at least for mammals. For plants I don't know. It's possible they have some pain, but I'd expect it to be very different and lesser. For computers I see no reason to think there's any physical pain (though perhaps in the future)