6 ms·

I don’t really doubt that it’s in principle possible to assign percentage values to suffering intensity, but the 3% value (which the source admits is a “placeho

I don’t really doubt that it’s in principle possible to assign percentage values to suffering intensity, but the 3% value (which the source admits is a “placeholder”) seems completely unhinged for an animal with 0.05% as many neurons as a chicken, and the source’s justification for largely discounting neuron counts seems pretty arbitrary, at least as presented in their FAQ.

adrian_b 2y ago
The ratio of the neuron numbers may be somewhat meaningful when comparing vertebrates with vertebrates and arthropods with arthropods, but it is almost completely meaningless when comparing vertebrates with arthropods. The reason is that the structure of the nervous systems of arthropods is quite different from that of the vertebrates. Comparing them is like comparing analog circuits and digital circuits that implement the same function, e.g. a number multiplier. The analog circuit may have a dozen transistors and the digital circuit may have hundreds of transistors, but they do the same thing (with different performance characteristics). The analogy with comparing analog and digital circuits is quite appropriate, because parts of the nervous systems that have the same function, e.g. controlling a leg muscle, may have hundreds or thousands of neurons in a vertebrate, which function in an all-or-nothing manner, while in an arthropod the equivalent part may have only a few neurons that function in a much more complex manner in order to achieve fine control of the leg movement. So typically one arthropod neuron is equivalent with much more vertebrate neurons, e.g. hundreds or even thousands. This does not mean that the nervous system of arthropods is better than that of vertebrates. They are optimized for different criteria. Neither a vertebrate can become as small as the smallest arthropods, nor an arthropod can become as big as the bigger vertebrates, the systems that integrate the organs of a body into a single living organism, i.e. the nervous system and the circulatory and respiratory systems, are optimized for a small size in arthropods and for a big size in vertebrates.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 2y ago
  Interesting. I'm fairly puzzled by sensation/qualia. The idea that there's some chemical reaction in my brain which produces sensation as a side effect is very weird. In principle it seems like you ought to be able to pare things down in order to produce a "minimal chemical reaction" for suffering, and do "suffering chemistry" in a beaker (if you were feeling unethical). That's really trippy. People often talk about suffering in conjunction with consciousness, but in my mind information processing and suffering are just different phenomena: * Children aren't as good at information processing, but they are even more capable of suffering. * I wouldn't liked to be kicked if I was sleeping, or blackout drunk, even if I was incapable of information processing at the time, and had no memory of the event. So intuitively it seems like more neurons = more "suffering chemistry" = greater moral weight. However, I imagine that perhaps the amount of "suffering chemistry" required to motivate an organism is actually fairly constant regardless of its size. Same way a gigantic cargo ship and a small children's toy could in principle be controlled by the same tiny microchip. That could explain the moral weight result. Interested to hear any thoughts.
  - adrian_b 2y ago
    While in animals with complex nervous systems like humans and also many mammals and birds there may be psychological reasons for suffering, like the absence or death of someone beloved, suffering from physical pain is present in most, if not all animals. The sensation of pain is provided by dedicated sensory neurons, like other sensory neurons are specialized for sensing light, sound, smell, taste, temperature, tactile pressure, gravity, force in the muscles/tendons, electric currents, magnetic fields, radiant heat a.k.a. infrared light and so on (some of these sensors exist only in some non-human animals). The pain-sensing neurons, a.k.a. nociceptors, can be identified anatomically in some of the better studied animals, including humans, but it is likely that they also exist in most other animals, with the possible exception of some parasitic or sedentary animals, where all the sense organs are strongly reduced. So all animals with such sensory neurons that cause pain are certain to suffer. The nociceptors are activated by various stimuli, e.g. either by otherwise normal stimuli that exceed some pain threshold, e.g. too intense light or noise, or by substances generated by damaged cells from their neighborhood.
    - 0xDEAFBEAD 2y ago
      Interesting. So how about counting nociceptors for moral weight? What specifically makes it so the pain neurons cause pain and the pleasure neurons cause pleasure? Supposing I invented a sort of hybrid neuron, with some features of a pain neuron and some features of a pleasure neuron -- is there any way a neuroscientist could look at its structure+chemistry and predict whether it will produce pleasures vs pain?
      - adrian_b 2y ago
        Even if this is not well understood, it is likely that any differences between the pain neurons and any other sensory neurons are not essential. It is likely that it only matters where they are connected in the sensory paths that carry the information about sensations towards the central nervous system. Probably any signal coming into the central nervous system on those paths dedicated for pain is interpreted as pain, like a signal coming through the optical nerves would be interpreted as light, even when it would be caused by an impact on the head. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nociception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nociception
- mistercow 2y ago
  I totally agree that you can’t just do a 1:1 comparison. My point is not to say that a shrimp suffers .05% as much as a chicken, but to use a chicken as a point of reference to illustrate just how simple the nervous system of a shrimp is. We’re talking about a scale here where we have to question whether the notion of suffering is applicable at all before we try to put it on any kind of spectrum.
sodality2 2y ago
> “Shouldn’t you give neuron counts more weight in your estimates?” Rethink Priorities [0] has a FAQ entry on this [1]. [0]: https://rethinkpriorities.org/research-area/welfare-range-estimates/ https://rethinkpriorities.org/research-area/welfare-range-es... [1]: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Mfq7KxQRvkeLnJvoB/using-neuron-counts-as-a-proxy-for-moral-weight https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Mfq7KxQRvkeLnJvoB/...
- mistercow 2y ago
  Which I referenced and called arbitrary.
  - sodality2 2y ago
    Your claim that it's arbitrary doesn't really have much weight without further reasoning.
    - mistercow 2y ago
      The problem is that the reasoning they give is so vague that there isn’t really anything to argue against. At best, they convincingly argue, in an extremely non-information-dense way, that neuron count isn’t everything, which is obviously true. They do not manage to argue convincingly that a 100k neuron system is something that we can even apply the word “suffering” to meaningfully.
      - BenthamsBulldog 2y ago
        But if neuron counts, as they show, have no reliable correlation (and in some cases an inverse correlation) with valenced experience, why would we use them to rule out intense experiences?
        mistercow 2y ago
        This feels like a severe motte and bailey. The motte is “neuron count is not perfectly linearly correlated with sentience” and the bailey is “neuron count has no reliable correlation with sentience”. The priors referenced in the “technical details” doc (and good lord, why does everything about this require me to dereference three or four layers of pointers to get to basic answers to methodological questions?) appear to be based entirely on proxies like: > Responses such as moving away, escaping, and avoidance, that seem to account for noxious stimuli intensity and direction. This is a proxy that applies to slime molds and Roombas, yet I notice that neither of those made the table. Why not? I suspect that the answer is that at least when it comes to having zero neurons, the correlation suddenly becomes pretty obviously reliable after all.
NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
> I don’t really doubt that it’s in principle possible to assign percentage values to suffering intensity, but the 3% value (which the source admits is a “placeholder”) seems completely unhinged for an animal with 0.05% as many neurons as a chicken, There is a simple explanation for the confusion that this causes you and the other people in this thread: suffering's not real. It's a dumb gobbledygook term that in the most generous interpretation refers to a completely subjective experience that is not empirical or measurable. The author uses the word "imagine" three times in the first two paragraphs for a reason. Then he follows up with a fake picture of anthropomorphic shrimp. This is some sort of con game. And you're all falling for it. He's not scamming money out of you, instead he wants to convert you to his religious-dietary-code-that-is-trying-to-become-a-religion. Shrimp are food. They have zero moral weight.
- mistercow 2y ago
  Denying the existence of something that you and everyone else has experienced is certainly an approach. Look, I’m not going to defend the author here. The linked report reads to me like the output of a group of people who have become so insulated in their thinking on this subject that they’ve totally lost perspective. They give an 11% prior probability of earthworm sentience based on proxies like “avoiding noxious stimuli”, which is… really something. But I’m not so confused by a bad set of arguments that I think suffering doesn’t exist.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
    > Denying the existence of something that you and everyone else has experienced is certainly an approach. You've experienced this mystical thing, and so you know it's true? > They give an 11% prior probability of earthworm sentience I'm having trouble holding in the laughter. But you don't seem to understand how dangerously deranged these people are. They'll convert you to their religion by hook or crook.
    - bulletsvshumans 2y ago
      Setting aside the shrimp, are you denying that any humans, including yourself, experience suffering?

adrian_b 2y ago

The ratio of the neuron numbers may be somewhat meaningful when comparing vertebrates with vertebrates and arthropods with arthropods, but it is almost completely meaningless when comparing vertebrates with arthropods. The reason is that the structure of the nervous systems of arthropods is quite different from that of the vertebrates. Comparing them is like comparing analog circuits and digital circuits that implement the same function, e.g. a number multiplier. The analog circuit may have a dozen transistors and the digital circuit may have hundreds of transistors, but they do the same thing (with different performance characteristics). The analogy with comparing analog and digital circuits is quite appropriate, because parts of the nervous systems that have the same function, e.g. controlling a leg muscle, may have hundreds or thousands of neurons in a vertebrate, which function in an all-or-nothing manner, while in an arthropod the equivalent part may have only a few neurons that function in a much more complex manner in order to achieve fine control of the leg movement. So typically one arthropod neuron is equivalent with much more vertebrate neurons, e.g. hundreds or even thousands. This does not mean that the nervous system of arthropods is better than that of vertebrates. They are optimized for different criteria. Neither a vertebrate can become as small as the smallest arthropods, nor an arthropod can become as big as the bigger vertebrates, the systems that integrate the organs of a body into a single living organism, i.e. the nervous system and the circulatory and respiratory systems, are optimized for a small size in arthropods and for a big size in vertebrates.

0xDEAFBEAD 2y ago
Interesting. I'm fairly puzzled by sensation/qualia. The idea that there's some chemical reaction in my brain which produces sensation as a side effect is very weird. In principle it seems like you ought to be able to pare things down in order to produce a "minimal chemical reaction" for suffering, and do "suffering chemistry" in a beaker (if you were feeling unethical). That's really trippy. People often talk about suffering in conjunction with consciousness, but in my mind information processing and suffering are just different phenomena: * Children aren't as good at information processing, but they are even more capable of suffering. * I wouldn't liked to be kicked if I was sleeping, or blackout drunk, even if I was incapable of information processing at the time, and had no memory of the event. So intuitively it seems like more neurons = more "suffering chemistry" = greater moral weight. However, I imagine that perhaps the amount of "suffering chemistry" required to motivate an organism is actually fairly constant regardless of its size. Same way a gigantic cargo ship and a small children's toy could in principle be controlled by the same tiny microchip. That could explain the moral weight result. Interested to hear any thoughts.
- adrian_b 2y ago
  While in animals with complex nervous systems like humans and also many mammals and birds there may be psychological reasons for suffering, like the absence or death of someone beloved, suffering from physical pain is present in most, if not all animals. The sensation of pain is provided by dedicated sensory neurons, like other sensory neurons are specialized for sensing light, sound, smell, taste, temperature, tactile pressure, gravity, force in the muscles/tendons, electric currents, magnetic fields, radiant heat a.k.a. infrared light and so on (some of these sensors exist only in some non-human animals). The pain-sensing neurons, a.k.a. nociceptors, can be identified anatomically in some of the better studied animals, including humans, but it is likely that they also exist in most other animals, with the possible exception of some parasitic or sedentary animals, where all the sense organs are strongly reduced. So all animals with such sensory neurons that cause pain are certain to suffer. The nociceptors are activated by various stimuli, e.g. either by otherwise normal stimuli that exceed some pain threshold, e.g. too intense light or noise, or by substances generated by damaged cells from their neighborhood.
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 2y ago
    Interesting. So how about counting nociceptors for moral weight? What specifically makes it so the pain neurons cause pain and the pleasure neurons cause pleasure? Supposing I invented a sort of hybrid neuron, with some features of a pain neuron and some features of a pleasure neuron -- is there any way a neuroscientist could look at its structure+chemistry and predict whether it will produce pleasures vs pain?
    - adrian_b 2y ago
      Even if this is not well understood, it is likely that any differences between the pain neurons and any other sensory neurons are not essential. It is likely that it only matters where they are connected in the sensory paths that carry the information about sensations towards the central nervous system. Probably any signal coming into the central nervous system on those paths dedicated for pain is interpreted as pain, like a signal coming through the optical nerves would be interpreted as light, even when it would be caused by an impact on the head. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nociception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nociception
mistercow 2y ago
I totally agree that you can’t just do a 1:1 comparison. My point is not to say that a shrimp suffers .05% as much as a chicken, but to use a chicken as a point of reference to illustrate just how simple the nervous system of a shrimp is. We’re talking about a scale here where we have to question whether the notion of suffering is applicable at all before we try to put it on any kind of spectrum.

sodality2 2y ago

> “Shouldn’t you give neuron counts more weight in your estimates?” Rethink Priorities [0] has a FAQ entry on this [1]. [0]: https://rethinkpriorities.org/research-area/welfare-range-estimates/ https://rethinkpriorities.org/research-area/welfare-range-es... [1]: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Mfq7KxQRvkeLnJvoB/using-neuron-counts-as-a-proxy-for-moral-weight https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Mfq7KxQRvkeLnJvoB/...

mistercow 2y ago
Which I referenced and called arbitrary.
- sodality2 2y ago
  Your claim that it's arbitrary doesn't really have much weight without further reasoning.
  - mistercow 2y ago
    The problem is that the reasoning they give is so vague that there isn’t really anything to argue against. At best, they convincingly argue, in an extremely non-information-dense way, that neuron count isn’t everything, which is obviously true. They do not manage to argue convincingly that a 100k neuron system is something that we can even apply the word “suffering” to meaningfully.
    - BenthamsBulldog 2y ago
      But if neuron counts, as they show, have no reliable correlation (and in some cases an inverse correlation) with valenced experience, why would we use them to rule out intense experiences?
      - mistercow 2y ago
        This feels like a severe motte and bailey. The motte is “neuron count is not perfectly linearly correlated with sentience” and the bailey is “neuron count has no reliable correlation with sentience”. The priors referenced in the “technical details” doc (and good lord, why does everything about this require me to dereference three or four layers of pointers to get to basic answers to methodological questions?) appear to be based entirely on proxies like: > Responses such as moving away, escaping, and avoidance, that seem to account for noxious stimuli intensity and direction. This is a proxy that applies to slime molds and Roombas, yet I notice that neither of those made the table. Why not? I suspect that the answer is that at least when it comes to having zero neurons, the correlation suddenly becomes pretty obviously reliable after all.

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago

> I don’t really doubt that it’s in principle possible to assign percentage values to suffering intensity, but the 3% value (which the source admits is a “placeholder”) seems completely unhinged for an animal with 0.05% as many neurons as a chicken, There is a simple explanation for the confusion that this causes you and the other people in this thread: suffering's not real. It's a dumb gobbledygook term that in the most generous interpretation refers to a completely subjective experience that is not empirical or measurable. The author uses the word "imagine" three times in the first two paragraphs for a reason. Then he follows up with a fake picture of anthropomorphic shrimp. This is some sort of con game. And you're all falling for it. He's not scamming money out of you, instead he wants to convert you to his religious-dietary-code-that-is-trying-to-become-a-religion. Shrimp are food. They have zero moral weight.

mistercow 2y ago
Denying the existence of something that you and everyone else has experienced is certainly an approach. Look, I’m not going to defend the author here. The linked report reads to me like the output of a group of people who have become so insulated in their thinking on this subject that they’ve totally lost perspective. They give an 11% prior probability of earthworm sentience based on proxies like “avoiding noxious stimuli”, which is… really something. But I’m not so confused by a bad set of arguments that I think suffering doesn’t exist.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
  > Denying the existence of something that you and everyone else has experienced is certainly an approach. You've experienced this mystical thing, and so you know it's true? > They give an 11% prior probability of earthworm sentience I'm having trouble holding in the laughter. But you don't seem to understand how dangerously deranged these people are. They'll convert you to their religion by hook or crook.
  - bulletsvshumans 2y ago
    Setting aside the shrimp, are you denying that any humans, including yourself, experience suffering?