It’s better to save infinite electrons from torture than to save one person, by this reasoning. There’s a certain non-zero probability that electrons can suffer. It’s pretty tiny, of course, but if you have an infinite number of electrons, the expected reduction in suffering from saving them, even given this very tiny probability, would exceed the suffering of one person.
Either the infinite shrimp or infinite electron version is just another example of utilitarianism leading to crazy town.
There’s a certain non-zero probability that electrons can suffer.
It’s possible that David Chalmers would endorse the idea that electrons could at least have some kind of phenomenological experience.
However, I would bet that shrimp can somehow suffer, because pain is an evolutionary advantage that would have been selected for very early, maybe as early as worms. While I don’t think there would be any reason that electrons should feel pain, if they feel anything at all.
You don’t think there’s any reason, but that just makes your estimate of its likelihood very small. It doesn’t make it exactly zero. And unless it’s exactly zero, when multiplied by infinity, this still overwhelms everything else, just like it does for the shrimp.
It’s better to save infinite electrons from torture than to save one person, by this reasoning. There’s a certain non-zero probability that electrons can suffer. It’s pretty tiny, of course, but if you have an infinite number of electrons, the expected reduction in suffering from saving them, even given this very tiny probability, would exceed the suffering of one person.
Either the infinite shrimp or infinite electron version is just another example of utilitarianism leading to crazy town.
It’s possible that David Chalmers would endorse the idea that electrons could at least have some kind of phenomenological experience.
However, I would bet that shrimp can somehow suffer, because pain is an evolutionary advantage that would have been selected for very early, maybe as early as worms. While I don’t think there would be any reason that electrons should feel pain, if they feel anything at all.
You don’t think there’s any reason, but that just makes your estimate of its likelihood very small. It doesn’t make it exactly zero. And unless it’s exactly zero, when multiplied by infinity, this still overwhelms everything else, just like it does for the shrimp.
You say by the same reasoning. Can you give me one of the arguments that is the same? None of the premises I give assume utilitarianism.
Comparing the suffering by some beings to the suffering by other beings implicitly invokes utilitarianism.