“In regards to intelligence, we can question both the extent to which more neurons are correlated with intelligence and whether more intelligence in fact predicts greater moral weight;
Many ways of arguing that more neurons results in more valenced consciousness seem incompatible with our current understanding of how the brain is likely to work; and
There is no straightforward empirical evidence or compelling conceptual arguments indicating that relative differences in neuron counts within or between species reliably predicts welfare relevant functional capacities.
Overall, we suggest that neuron counts should not be used as a sole proxy for moral weight, but cannot be dismissed entirely”
This hardly seems an argument against the one in the shortform, namely
Neither a physicalist nor a functionalist theory of consciousness can reasonably justify a number like this. Shrimp have 5 orders of magnitude fewer neurons than humans, so whether suffering is the result of a physical process or an information processing one, this implies that shrimp neurons do 4 orders of magnitude more of this process per second than human neurons. The authors get around this by refusing to stake themselves on any theory of consciousness.
If the original authors never thought of this that seems on them.
Your disagreement, from what I understand, seems mostly to stem from the fact that shrimps have less neuron than humans.
Did you check RP’s piece on that topic, “Why Neuron Counts Shouldn’t Be Used as Proxies for Moral Weight?”
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Mfq7KxQRvkeLnJvoB/why-neuron-counts-shouldn-t-be-used-as-proxies-for-moral
They say this:
“In regards to intelligence, we can question both the extent to which more neurons are correlated with intelligence and whether more intelligence in fact predicts greater moral weight;
Many ways of arguing that more neurons results in more valenced consciousness seem incompatible with our current understanding of how the brain is likely to work; and
There is no straightforward empirical evidence or compelling conceptual arguments indicating that relative differences in neuron counts within or between species reliably predicts welfare relevant functional capacities.
Overall, we suggest that neuron counts should not be used as a sole proxy for moral weight, but cannot be dismissed entirely”
This hardly seems an argument against the one in the shortform, namely
If the original authors never thought of this that seems on them.