3 ms·
I am not a specialist but from the little evidence I've read the octopus could be one of the most conscious species on the planet. Would not capture or eat. Yo
by block_dagger 3y ago
I am not a specialist but from the little evidence I've read the octopus could be one of the most conscious species on the planet. Would not capture or eat.
You're right that this example throws a wrench in my genetic relatedness argument. Stepping back from that, the deeper question is: how obvious is it that a creature can suffer similar to my own suffering? If it's obvious, it's obviously a bad choice for domination and consumption in my book. Plants do not have this outward obvious ability to suffer imo.
EDIT: after a conversation with ChatGPT, I think it's reasonable to base one's assessment of suffering potential on the following observations of an organism: nervous system complexity, social behavior, learning and problem solving, presence/intensity of pain receptors, response to stimuli, and outward evidence of emotional states.
- justinclift 3y agoYou may want to include some kind of time factor into your suffering assessment. Like, what if some "thing" has very complex behaviours as per your existing items, but their external signalling rate is so slow that it takes hours for them to start displaying their reactions? (note - that's just an exaggerated thing to convey the idea)
- thomasskis 3y agoI think the subjective time here is especially relevant. The post previous mentioned having a conversation with ChatGPT about the topic. ChatGPT probably had multiple human lifetimes of conversations during that one conversation. Would it think of humans the same way we think of trees? Too slow to have meaningful behaviour? Maybe on H100s not just yet.
- justinclift 3y agoInteresting angle. Hadn't thought of that, and it's probably good to be aware of. :)