If you read it carefully, my first rephrasing actually says that you torture the original person for a week, and then you (almost) perfectly erase their memories (and physical changes) during that week.
This depends very much on the definition of “original” and notions of identity. You can’t expect that they behave in a common sense manner in such a thought experiment.
Sure, but then why do you expect memory and experience would also behave in a common sense manner? (At least, that’s what I think you did in your first comment.)
I interpreted the OP as “I’m confused about memory and experience; let’s try a thought experiment about a very uncommon situation just to see what we think it would happen”. And your first comment reads to me as “you picked a bad thought experiment, because you’re not describing a common situation”. Which seems to completely miss the point, the whole purpose of the thought experiment was to investigate the consequences of something very distinct from situations where “common sense” has real experience to rely on.
The part about torturing children I don’t even get at all. Wondering about something seems to me almost the opposite of the philosophy of “doing something because you think you know the answer”. Should we never do thought experiments, because someone might act on mistaken assumptions about those ideas? Not thinking about something before doing it sounds to me like exactly the opposite of the correct strategy.
If you are confused about memory then go read cognitive psychology. It’s a science that among other things studies memory.
Don’t engage in thought experiments based on flawed folk psychology concepts of memory when science is available.
The part about torturing children I don’t even get at all.
It’s simply the history of the subject. Doctors did surgery on small children without full anesthesia because children won’t remember anyway.
We do live today (or at least a decade ago) in a world where people inflict pain and then erase the memories of the experience and argue that it means that the pain they inflicted doesn’t matter.
It’s a bit like opening a thread arguing that the Spanish inquisition was right for torturing nonbelievers because they they acted under the assumption that they could save souls from eternal damnation by doing so.
It’s a bit like opening a thread arguing that the Spanish inquisition was right for torturing nonbelievers because they they acted under the assumption that they could save souls from eternal damnation by doing so.
But the OP didn’t argue in support of torturing people, as far as I can tell. In the terms of your analogy, my reading was of the OP was a bit like:
“Hey, if the Spanish Inquisition came to you and offered the following two options, would you pick either of them, or refuse both? The options are (1) you’re excommunicated, then you get all the cake you want for a week, then you forget about it, or (2) you’re sanctified, then you’re tortured for a week, then you forget about it. Option (3) means nothing happens, they just leave.”
My example about the Spanish Inquisition was supposed to indicate that it assumes that God exists does certain things. Those aren’t beliefs that any reasonable person holds. If you judge the actions of the Spanish inquisition while presuming that their beliefs are true you miss the core issue, that their beliefs aren’t true.
The OP did advocate certain beliefs about the nature of memory and experience that I consider wrong. We live in a world where people make real decisions about tradeoff between experience and memories. I do think you are likely to get those decisions wrong if you train yourself to think about memory based on thought experiments that ignore how memory and experience works.
You don’t get an accurate idea about memory by ignoring scientific research about memory. If you want to discuss examples, there are a bunch of real world examples where you increase the pain that people experience but don’t give them painful memories. Discussing them based on what we know from scientific research would bring you much more relevant knowledge about the nature of memory.
Saying that you are unsure about memory and then assume that memory works a certain way is not a good road to go if you want to understand it better. Especially when you are wrong about how memory works in the first place.
This depends very much on the definition of “original” and notions of identity. You can’t expect that they behave in a common sense manner in such a thought experiment.
Sure, but then why do you expect memory and experience would also behave in a common sense manner? (At least, that’s what I think you did in your first comment.)
I interpreted the OP as “I’m confused about memory and experience; let’s try a thought experiment about a very uncommon situation just to see what we think it would happen”. And your first comment reads to me as “you picked a bad thought experiment, because you’re not describing a common situation”. Which seems to completely miss the point, the whole purpose of the thought experiment was to investigate the consequences of something very distinct from situations where “common sense” has real experience to rely on.
The part about torturing children I don’t even get at all. Wondering about something seems to me almost the opposite of the philosophy of “doing something because you think you know the answer”. Should we never do thought experiments, because someone might act on mistaken assumptions about those ideas? Not thinking about something before doing it sounds to me like exactly the opposite of the correct strategy.
If you are confused about memory then go read cognitive psychology. It’s a science that among other things studies memory.
Don’t engage in thought experiments based on flawed folk psychology concepts of memory when science is available.
It’s simply the history of the subject. Doctors did surgery on small children without full anesthesia because children won’t remember anyway.
We do live today (or at least a decade ago) in a world where people inflict pain and then erase the memories of the experience and argue that it means that the pain they inflicted doesn’t matter.
It’s a bit like opening a thread arguing that the Spanish inquisition was right for torturing nonbelievers because they they acted under the assumption that they could save souls from eternal damnation by doing so.
But the OP didn’t argue in support of torturing people, as far as I can tell. In the terms of your analogy, my reading was of the OP was a bit like:
“Hey, if the Spanish Inquisition came to you and offered the following two options, would you pick either of them, or refuse both? The options are (1) you’re excommunicated, then you get all the cake you want for a week, then you forget about it, or (2) you’re sanctified, then you’re tortured for a week, then you forget about it. Option (3) means nothing happens, they just leave.”
Which sounds completely different to my ears.
My example about the Spanish Inquisition was supposed to indicate that it assumes that God exists does certain things. Those aren’t beliefs that any reasonable person holds. If you judge the actions of the Spanish inquisition while presuming that their beliefs are true you miss the core issue, that their beliefs aren’t true.
The OP did advocate certain beliefs about the nature of memory and experience that I consider wrong. We live in a world where people make real decisions about tradeoff between experience and memories. I do think you are likely to get those decisions wrong if you train yourself to think about memory based on thought experiments that ignore how memory and experience works.
You don’t get an accurate idea about memory by ignoring scientific research about memory. If you want to discuss examples, there are a bunch of real world examples where you increase the pain that people experience but don’t give them painful memories. Discussing them based on what we know from scientific research would bring you much more relevant knowledge about the nature of memory.
Saying that you are unsure about memory and then assume that memory works a certain way is not a good road to go if you want to understand it better. Especially when you are wrong about how memory works in the first place.
Honestly, I can’t really find anything significant in this comment I disagree with.