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Maybe the sort of suffering that deserves compassion is something high-level that only humans do. * If it's low-level, you get things like a damaged clockwork

Maybe the sort of suffering that deserves compassion is something high-level that only humans do. * If it's low-level, you get things like a damaged clockwork toy or a thwarted Roomba suffering. Maybe parking radar is transmitting pain signals. Silly things like that. But if not those, why an ant, or a whelk, or a dog? * Maybe, conversely, all of that should count, but why should any of it cause compassion, or confer rights? Surely those things have to do with relationships and society.

danaris 2y ago
...I don't see how you can draw a comparison between the level of consciousness of a clockwork toy or an ant, and a dog. (I honestly have insufficient understanding of the biology of a whelk to know where to place it in this.) We have very clear research on dog psychology these days. (Nowhere near as much as we have on humans, but still quite a bit.) They are not as sapient as humans, but they are clearly sentient to at least a moderate degree. They feel pain in much the same way humans do. There's a much, much clearer line between the things in your bullet's first sentence and the ones in its last sentence than there is between a dog and a human.
- card_zero 2y ago
  That was a deliberate jump, yes. Question is, what do you mean by "feel pain in the way", and why does that way make it matter morally - why doesn't the simpler way matter too, and just as much?
  - danaris 2y ago
    There is no way in which a clockwork toy feels pain. There is no way in which a Roomba feels pain. There is no way in which an LLM feels pain. Dogs feel pain "in the way" humans do because they have a central nervous system with pain receptors. They are mammals. We share a huge amount of our genetic code with them. Ants do not have a central nervous system. If they feel pain, it is in a different way. To a large extent, ants and similar insects are biological automata. They're fascinating, particularly the way they organize in groups, and we can learn a lot about biology and biochemistry from them, but an individual ant does not have anything resembling the consciousness and experience of the world that a mammal does. Unless, of course, there's some kind of "soul" at work that is completely immeasurable by scientific instruments. (And like I said in my previous post, I just don't know much about whelks.)
    - card_zero 2y ago
      Yes, and why does it matter? I went and read Jeremy Bentham's bit again: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham#:~:text=number%20of%20legs https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham#:~:text=number%... [villosity = hairiness, os sacrum = the bone above the tailbone] I think he has a lot of confusion to answer for. We've been focused on inner experience of people and animals, and in the spirit of utilitarianism, trying to micromanage our effects on all those unknown experiences on the basis that it's bad if suffering is happening. But maybe this is wrong-headed. Maybe "suffering" isn't even a thing, and the moral issue, the badness, is tied to ideas, knowledge, relationships, society, things like that. I'm being very vague because this is a half-formed idea. People are likely to come back with what about babies, or those with locked-in syndrome, or out-groups, or I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream? But I just think the focus on suffering, and experiences, and qualia, as a moral criterion, is a road to nowhere. Maybe those things aren't definable or meaningful except in the context of ideas (etc., as above). The wrangling, about what is or isn't having a morally significant experience, is an unresolved fudge that we live with and function under. I mean such is life, but it would be nice to find a way to escape from under some of life's fudge.
      - danaris 2y ago
        Suffering is very real. I know, because I have experienced it. It is a bad thing to experience. Therefore, when I know—or reasonably believe—that something can experience it, I want to minimize that, because I care about the experiences of living things. We know, or reasonably believe, that dogs can have experiences, and feel pain, and thus can feel suffering. We know that a clockwork toy cannot have experiences, and thus cannot experience suffering. You may pontificate on all you want about what's really real and other deep philosophical concepts, or about edge cases; meanwhile, I will be here in actual reality, which I perceive and experience, where I am able to make very clear and straightforward observations of what is true in the majority of cases. (And to be clear: I am not saying that it is not important to understand the philosophical implications of things, nor that edge cases don't matter. I am saying that they do not negate very clear and observable facts about our universe. The existence of gray areas does not mean there are not things that are clearly black, or clearly white.)

danaris 2y ago

...I don't see how you can draw a comparison between the level of consciousness of a clockwork toy or an ant, and a dog. (I honestly have insufficient understanding of the biology of a whelk to know where to place it in this.) We have very clear research on dog psychology these days. (Nowhere near as much as we have on humans, but still quite a bit.) They are not as sapient as humans, but they are clearly sentient to at least a moderate degree. They feel pain in much the same way humans do. There's a much, much clearer line between the things in your bullet's first sentence and the ones in its last sentence than there is between a dog and a human.

card_zero 2y ago
That was a deliberate jump, yes. Question is, what do you mean by "feel pain in the way", and why does that way make it matter morally - why doesn't the simpler way matter too, and just as much?
- danaris 2y ago
  There is no way in which a clockwork toy feels pain. There is no way in which a Roomba feels pain. There is no way in which an LLM feels pain. Dogs feel pain "in the way" humans do because they have a central nervous system with pain receptors. They are mammals. We share a huge amount of our genetic code with them. Ants do not have a central nervous system. If they feel pain, it is in a different way. To a large extent, ants and similar insects are biological automata. They're fascinating, particularly the way they organize in groups, and we can learn a lot about biology and biochemistry from them, but an individual ant does not have anything resembling the consciousness and experience of the world that a mammal does. Unless, of course, there's some kind of "soul" at work that is completely immeasurable by scientific instruments. (And like I said in my previous post, I just don't know much about whelks.)
  - card_zero 2y ago
    Yes, and why does it matter? I went and read Jeremy Bentham's bit again: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham#:~:text=number%20of%20legs https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham#:~:text=number%... [villosity = hairiness, os sacrum = the bone above the tailbone] I think he has a lot of confusion to answer for. We've been focused on inner experience of people and animals, and in the spirit of utilitarianism, trying to micromanage our effects on all those unknown experiences on the basis that it's bad if suffering is happening. But maybe this is wrong-headed. Maybe "suffering" isn't even a thing, and the moral issue, the badness, is tied to ideas, knowledge, relationships, society, things like that. I'm being very vague because this is a half-formed idea. People are likely to come back with what about babies, or those with locked-in syndrome, or out-groups, or I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream? But I just think the focus on suffering, and experiences, and qualia, as a moral criterion, is a road to nowhere. Maybe those things aren't definable or meaningful except in the context of ideas (etc., as above). The wrangling, about what is or isn't having a morally significant experience, is an unresolved fudge that we live with and function under. I mean such is life, but it would be nice to find a way to escape from under some of life's fudge.
    - danaris 2y ago
      Suffering is very real. I know, because I have experienced it. It is a bad thing to experience. Therefore, when I know—or reasonably believe—that something can experience it, I want to minimize that, because I care about the experiences of living things. We know, or reasonably believe, that dogs can have experiences, and feel pain, and thus can feel suffering. We know that a clockwork toy cannot have experiences, and thus cannot experience suffering. You may pontificate on all you want about what's really real and other deep philosophical concepts, or about edge cases; meanwhile, I will be here in actual reality, which I perceive and experience, where I am able to make very clear and straightforward observations of what is true in the majority of cases. (And to be clear: I am not saying that it is not important to understand the philosophical implications of things, nor that edge cases don't matter. I am saying that they do not negate very clear and observable facts about our universe. The existence of gray areas does not mean there are not things that are clearly black, or clearly white.)