4 ms·

So if a human loses their memory and their neutral plasticity (with age for example), then they are no longer capable of experiencing suffering?

• pton_xd 10d ago
  It's not just memory, the physical body also encodes trauma and stress (The Body Keeps the Score is a book that touches on this). I would argue that if a human has absolutely zero change, mental or physical, no atom of their being is modified, then no they did not experience suffering.
  • JoshTriplett 10d ago
    > I would argue that if a human has absolutely zero change, mental or physical, no atom of their being is modified, then no they did not experience suffering. Just because you don't remember the suffering doesn't mean you didn't experience it in the moment. Suffering does not suddenly become okay if your mind and body are going to forget it. "It's okay to torture someone if their mind and body both won't remember it afterwards" sure is a take.
    • fwip 10d ago
      Perhaps off-topic, but there's some people who believe that this can be what happens during surgery under anesthesia, if the dosage is off. From what I understand, there's 3 parts to modern anesthesia: Blocking pain signals, preventing the formation of memories, and inducing paralysis of the major muscle groups. If the former is dialed in too weakly, it's possible that the patient is feeling pain, unable to do anything about it, but won't remember it at all when they wake up. (Looking it up now, it seems that making the patient unconscious is perhaps the same drug that prevents memory formation... I realize now I understand this less well than I thought I did.)
      • JoshTriplett 10d ago
        Relatedly, look at the concept of "twilight anesthesia".
      • pixl97 10d ago
        Low blood sugar will also do this. The record button just stops working even though your physical body can and will still do things. A common issue with diabetics with hypoglycemia.
  • qarl 10d ago
    > I would argue that if a human has absolutely zero change, mental or physical, no atom of their being is modified, then no they did not experience suffering. That's an interesting point... but I'd argue it falls into the same category as qualia. It's basically this: if there is no state change, the qualia did not exist. And so is probably unanswerable. Qualia is a bitch to reason about.
• staticman2 10d ago
  This framing is a trap. It states "Dehumanize a sick patient OR concede the AI tech bro claim about LLMs" It's also a rhetorical move I've seen several times here...
  • shawnz 10d ago
    It's not a "trap", it's the real argument which makes me hesitant to dismiss consciousness of machines. Yes, it seems silly to dismiss a sick patient as having a lesser consciousness, which is exactly the point
    • staticman2 10d ago
      It seems silly to dismiss the patient because we know when healthy they are conscious. This doesn't really analogize to LLMs.
      • mitxela 9d ago
        So you think a dementia patient might be a p-zombie during the time they have dementia?
        • staticman2 8d ago
          > "This framing is a trap. It states "Dehumanize a sick patient OR concede the AI tech bro claim about LLMs"
    • joshheitzman 9d ago
      It's not a real argument. Dementia patients can have lucid periods that plainly show their long-term memory isn't gone. They're mental state is obviously degraded, but its disingenuous to say they have no long-term memory and that they are any way similar to LLMs.
      • staticman2 8d ago
        Yeah I was gonna add I know there are case studies where sick humans don't consciously have access to long term memories but will still respond nonverbally to people they "recognize".
• Mumps 10d ago
  I get where you're going, but the argument isn't quite right. A LLM never has and, in their current architecture, never can/could experience suffering or real change of state. The general and expected case for humans is that capacity. A human my indeed lose capacity, e.g. being braindead and in severe cases we do indeed say that they are not conscious or able to suffer (different argument: some would of course say that is suffering in and of itself)
  • shawnz 10d ago
    > being braindead and in severe cases we do indeed say that they are not conscious or able to suffer Sure, there are such cases. But in the general case, it seems to be that memory and ability to change specifically are not necessary and are not sufficient for consciousness, so we shouldn't judge machines on that basis