This runs into the “experiencing self” vs “remembering self” distinction. Conceptually it seems very troublesome to perform expected utility calculations on behalf of the experiencing self—the one who would suffer the pains in the above scenario.
From the perspective of the remembering self, pain only matters if it leaves a trace: if you can remember it, or if (unconsciously) it changes the choices you’d make in similar situations in future.
(Think of Sammy Jenkis in the movie Memento who was shown to not be a “true” amnesiac—he avoided picking up toys that had been previously rigged to give him electric shock, even though he behaved as though he had no memory of the past shocks. Yes, this is a fictional example—but despite being fictional it validly highlights a distinction lurking below the surface of the word “memory”.)
From this perspective the disutility of the “hell” scenario consists only of the opportunity cost, i.e. while suffering hell you could instead have been doing something pleasant that you’d have remembered afterwards. But deleting the memories, and deleting any dispositions you may have acquired as a result of experiencing the pain, and so on—essentially restoring you to a previous backup—the deleted pain will not count from the perspective of the remembering self.
(Noting the “backup” analogy in the previous paragraph, I have to acknowledge that my intuitions in this may be shaped in part by my experiences playing video games...)
And, for a non-hypothetical example of the remembering self/experiencing self tradeoff, in Thinking Fast and Slow the example is colonoscopy methodology. We tend to remember pain in a peak-end way (the worst moment and the final moments), so if you prolong the colonoscopy’s least bad point right at the end (by leaving the scope just within the body for a little while unessential) we remember it as less awful than if you ended the procedure promptly. But the experiencing self goes through an extra period of low-grade discomfort.
As I recall from my readings on amnesia, having no conscious recollection of events but nevertheless having an unconscious preference (or lack of preference) is fairly common. Essentially patients have impaired declarative (explicit) memory but some spared implicit perceptual and motor memory. So the fictional example of Sammy Jenkis is actually quite reality-based.
What needs to be distinguished in this scenario is whether Omega is only wiping your declarative memory or if he’s also going in and getting rid of your implicit memory as well, which takes care of lower-level responses to stimuli that might otherwise cause problems after the event.
Having no conscious experience of events but having an unconscious something can also occur. This is what happens to the severed corpus callosum patients when you show them two images or words so that each is only in the field of vision of one eye. They only report seeing one, but the ‘unseen’ image can color their interpretation of the ‘seen’ one.
For example, if I show your talking half the word “cleave” and put a picture of two people hugging in the second, unseen slot, you’re more likely to define “cleave” as “joining” than you would be if the second picture was of a knife cutting fruit.
This runs into the “experiencing self” vs “remembering self” distinction. Conceptually it seems very troublesome to perform expected utility calculations on behalf of the experiencing self—the one who would suffer the pains in the above scenario.
From the perspective of the remembering self, pain only matters if it leaves a trace: if you can remember it, or if (unconsciously) it changes the choices you’d make in similar situations in future.
(Think of Sammy Jenkis in the movie Memento who was shown to not be a “true” amnesiac—he avoided picking up toys that had been previously rigged to give him electric shock, even though he behaved as though he had no memory of the past shocks. Yes, this is a fictional example—but despite being fictional it validly highlights a distinction lurking below the surface of the word “memory”.)
From this perspective the disutility of the “hell” scenario consists only of the opportunity cost, i.e. while suffering hell you could instead have been doing something pleasant that you’d have remembered afterwards. But deleting the memories, and deleting any dispositions you may have acquired as a result of experiencing the pain, and so on—essentially restoring you to a previous backup—the deleted pain will not count from the perspective of the remembering self.
(Noting the “backup” analogy in the previous paragraph, I have to acknowledge that my intuitions in this may be shaped in part by my experiences playing video games...)
And, for a non-hypothetical example of the remembering self/experiencing self tradeoff, in Thinking Fast and Slow the example is colonoscopy methodology. We tend to remember pain in a peak-end way (the worst moment and the final moments), so if you prolong the colonoscopy’s least bad point right at the end (by leaving the scope just within the body for a little while unessential) we remember it as less awful than if you ended the procedure promptly. But the experiencing self goes through an extra period of low-grade discomfort.
As I recall from my readings on amnesia, having no conscious recollection of events but nevertheless having an unconscious preference (or lack of preference) is fairly common. Essentially patients have impaired declarative (explicit) memory but some spared implicit perceptual and motor memory. So the fictional example of Sammy Jenkis is actually quite reality-based.
What needs to be distinguished in this scenario is whether Omega is only wiping your declarative memory or if he’s also going in and getting rid of your implicit memory as well, which takes care of lower-level responses to stimuli that might otherwise cause problems after the event.
Having no conscious experience of events but having an unconscious something can also occur. This is what happens to the severed corpus callosum patients when you show them two images or words so that each is only in the field of vision of one eye. They only report seeing one, but the ‘unseen’ image can color their interpretation of the ‘seen’ one.
For example, if I show your talking half the word “cleave” and put a picture of two people hugging in the second, unseen slot, you’re more likely to define “cleave” as “joining” than you would be if the second picture was of a knife cutting fruit.