Yet evolution specifically programmed humans to never ever worry about the welfare of beings in our “imagination,” because “they aren’t real.”
True. And yet we don’t even need to go as far as a realistic movie to override that limitation. All it takes to create such worry is to have someone draw a 2D cartoon of a very sad and lonely dog, which is even less real. Or play some sad music while showing a video a lamp in the rain, which is clearly inanimate. In some ways these induced worries for unfeeling entities are super stimuli for many of us, stronger than we may feel for many actual people.
I call this phenomenon a “moral illusion”. You are engaging empathy circuits on behalf of an imagined other who doesn’t exist. Category error. The only unhappiness is in the imaginer, not in the anthropomorphized object. I think this is likely what’s going with the shrimp welfare people also. Maybe shrimp feel something, but I doubt very much that they feel anything like what the worried people project onto them. It’s a thorny problem to be sure, since those empathy circuits are pretty important for helping humans not be cruel to other humans.
Mostly agreed. I have no idea how to evaluate this for most animals, but I would be very surprised if other mammals did not have subjective experiences analogous to our own for at least some feelings and emotions.
Yeah, I think how much you empathize with someone or something can depend strongly on the resolution of your imagination. If they’re presented in a detailed story with animated characters, you might really feel for them. But when people are presented just “statistics,” it’s easy for people to commit horrible atrocities without thinking or caring.
True. And yet we don’t even need to go as far as a realistic movie to override that limitation. All it takes to create such worry is to have someone draw a 2D cartoon of a very sad and lonely dog, which is even less real. Or play some sad music while showing a video a lamp in the rain, which is clearly inanimate. In some ways these induced worries for unfeeling entities are super stimuli for many of us, stronger than we may feel for many actual people.
I call this phenomenon a “moral illusion”. You are engaging empathy circuits on behalf of an imagined other who doesn’t exist. Category error. The only unhappiness is in the imaginer, not in the anthropomorphized object. I think this is likely what’s going with the shrimp welfare people also. Maybe shrimp feel something, but I doubt very much that they feel anything like what the worried people project onto them. It’s a thorny problem to be sure, since those empathy circuits are pretty important for helping humans not be cruel to other humans.
Mostly agreed. I have no idea how to evaluate this for most animals, but I would be very surprised if other mammals did not have subjective experiences analogous to our own for at least some feelings and emotions.
Oh, for sure mammals have emotions much like ours. Fruit flies and shrimp? Not so much. Wrong architecture, missing key pieces.
Fair enough.
I do believe it’s plausible that feelings, like pain and hunger, may be old and fundamental enough to exist across phyla.
I’m much less inclined to assume emotions are so widely shared, but I wish I could be more sure either way.
Yeah, I think how much you empathize with someone or something can depend strongly on the resolution of your imagination. If they’re presented in a detailed story with animated characters, you might really feel for them. But when people are presented just “statistics,” it’s easy for people to commit horrible atrocities without thinking or caring.
You put in the same link twice.
Thanks, fixed!
They made a sequel to the lamp ad with a happy ending! Lamp 2.