Killing animals painlessly without witnesses?

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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Killing animals painlessly without witnesses?

Post by brimstoneSalad »

cookiedivine wrote: Thu Jan 25, 2018 11:39 amPerhaps this WOULD be the greatest good for me?
When the mind finds that negative or positive feedback doesn't vary based on its actions, it shuts down and enters a state of catatonia since mental processes are no longer needed.

I forget what this is called in animal psychology (when, for example, the rat gets shocked randomly no matter what it does for long enough). I don't think it's extensively studied on account of being a form of torture, but it follows from our understanding of mind.

It depends on what you think *you* are. If it has anything to do with a thinking mind, you'd functionally cease to exist.
cookiedivine wrote: Thu Jan 25, 2018 11:39 amCouldn't you argue that, ultimately, it is all for pleasure?
That is, the desire to pursue goals ultimately comes from the desire to experience the pleasure that fulfilling these goals give us?
Only if you crack open the black box and short circuit it. Pleasure and pain mechanisms drive the mind in the same way gears drive a clock (thus the clock analogy I gave). It would be equally wrong to say those are the goals as to say the purpose of a clock is to spin the gears as fast as possible.

Pleasure and pain in a properly functioning mind are carefully regulated and create diminishing returns.
Cirion Spellbinder wrote: Thu Jan 25, 2018 9:27 pm
brimstoneSalad wrote:[...] otherwise you'd be game for being plugged into the mindless pleasure machine for the rest of your bedridden and meaningless life.
Why is this significant?
Because it suggests people do not really think pleasure is the goal.
Cirion Spellbinder wrote: Thu Jan 25, 2018 9:27 pmAn interest based approach would be game for creating extremely sentient and easily reproducible organisms with singular, easily and quickly satisfiable interests. Just as unpleasant.
Not really. See the first point in my reply above; that would work at odds with sentience.
Much like a video game that's no fun with a "win button" (and provides no fulfillment without some challenge), so is any fulfillment of interests.
Of course torture is not conducive to that, but there's probably a calculus to it that would provide a low and optimal level of frustration.

Optimal would probably be everybody living in Equestria or something, where nothing really terrible ever happens, but things aren't so perfect to make us mindless either, and that might involve being plugged into a "matrix", but a mindful and entertaining one rather than one of mindless euphoria.
Lightningman_42 wrote: Thu Jan 25, 2018 9:45 pmWhy do you think that most atheists are hedonists, or that pleasure/suffering-fixated morality is the most common type among atheists?
Probably not implicit atheists, but explicit/new atheists.
I don't have any statistics on it, just overwhelming observation.
Cirion Spellbinder
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Re: Killing animals painlessly without witnesses?

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“brimstoneSalad” wrote:that would work at odds with sentience.
Much like a video game that's no fun with a "win button" (and provides no fulfillment without some challenge), so is any fulfillment of interests.
Yeah, you’re right. But maybe, could an organism be conditioned to desire the mundane with a net moral benefit?
Of course torture is not conducive to that, but there's probably a calculus to it that would provide a low and optimal level of frustration.
Interesting point. I also think having lesser organisms in bulk and satisfying their basic needs could be an alternative.
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Re: Killing animals painlessly without witnesses?

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Cirion Spellbinder wrote: Fri Jan 26, 2018 2:06 am But maybe, could an organism be conditioned to desire the mundane with a net moral benefit?
I don't know what you mean by that.
If you're totally zen and only desire what you have, you'd ultimately be in a state of ataraxia which I think would mean mindless/catatonic. You lose self.
Cirion Spellbinder wrote: Fri Jan 26, 2018 2:06 amInteresting point. I also think having lesser organisms in bulk and satisfying their basic needs could be an alternative.
There's probably an optimal sentience level, but I don't suspect it would be a very low one. It would probably be something much higher than humans, until effects of relativity play into informatics. Or possibly precisely at humans, to minimize existential dread which may be compounded in higher sentience beings. It's entirely possible that we evolved to be optimal by accident, since a higher intelligence and sentience could be psychologically deleterious.

Kind of an unsolved question.

By the way: Welcome back!
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Re: Killing animals painlessly without witnesses?

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brimstoneSalad wrote: Fri Jan 26, 2018 3:03 amIf you're totally zen and only desire what you have, you'd ultimately be in a state of ataraxia which I think would mean mindless/catatonic. You lose self.
I don’t really get why that’s true. A zen being would be the epitome of interest fulfillment. Why would having your interests satisfied constantly and without them changing alter this?
Kind of an unsolved question.
Very interesting.
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Thanks!
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Re: Killing animals painlessly without witnesses?

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Cirion Spellbinder wrote: Mon Jan 29, 2018 8:49 pmWhy would having your interests satisfied constantly and without them changing alter this?
What purpose would the mind serve if this were the case?
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Re: Killing animals painlessly without witnesses?

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cookiedivine wrote:Perhaps this WOULD be the greatest good for me?
brimstoneSalad wrote:When the mind finds that negative or positive feedback doesn't vary based on its actions, it shuts down and enters a state of catatonia since mental processes are no longer needed.
I don't think we know enough about consciousness to say if there is necessarily a trade-off between a being's cognition and the experience of pleasure. Even if it turns out that's how evolution wired up animals, I don't see why we should assume it couldn't be modified in animals or executed differently in AI for example.

If for whatever reason there is no possible way to construct a mind that can both experience immense pleasure and retain the ability to think, I still don't see how that means moving in that direction would necessarily be a worse state of the universe. It doesn't seem far-fetched to say that that having tons of beings in an unimaginably blissful but catatonic state could still be a really good state of the universe. Without knowing exactly how positive\negative experience and cognition relate, it would be hard use this pleasure = mindlessness line of argument to support or refute anything about morality.
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Re: Killing animals painlessly without witnesses?

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brimstoneSalad wrote: Mon Jan 29, 2018 9:16 pmWhat purpose would the mind serve if this were the case?
None, but I’m not exactly sure how we define purpose and why is it relevant to determining sentience?
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Re: Killing animals painlessly without witnesses?

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Cirion Spellbinder wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2018 2:50 am
brimstoneSalad wrote: Mon Jan 29, 2018 9:16 pmWhat purpose would the mind serve if this were the case?
None, but I’m not exactly sure how we define purpose and why is it relevant to determining sentience?
Sentience isn't just a static configuration, it's a process, and not just a random process of the same neural pathway lighting up again and again - a static being or pattern is not sentient.
In order to be sentient, there has to be a cognitive response of learning to stimuli, a process of engagement and understanding on some primitive level.

A being in a state of euphoria is in an ultimate state of pleasure from which no improvement is possible, so there's nothing further to learn or understand.

Purpose is relevant in the sense that sentience IS what it does, so teleology helps us understand what sentience actually is and where it exists (and where it can't exist).
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Re: Killing animals painlessly without witnesses?

Post by Cirion Spellbinder »

brimstoneSalad wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2018 7:49 pm Sentience isn't just a static configuration [...]
I’m with you there now, but...
A being in a state of euphoria is in an ultimate state of pleasure from which no improvement is possible, so there's nothing further to learn or understand.
How do we know there is a maximum euphoria? What if the zen state still brainstorms new paths to pleasure, albeit with no results and without stress as a result?
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Re: Killing animals painlessly without witnesses?

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Cirion Spellbinder wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2018 8:40 pm
A being in a state of euphoria is in an ultimate state of pleasure from which no improvement is possible, so there's nothing further to learn or understand.
How do we know there is a maximum euphoria? What if the zen state still brainstorms new paths to pleasure, albeit with no results and without stress as a result?
Physical limits of neural circuitry.
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