My primary concerns with pain are that they a) coincide with permanent injury, and b) will result in some kind of post-traumatic nervous disorder in the future. Offer me the chance to experience some sort of pain without either of those and I’d probably accept out of sheer curiosity.
I wonder if some kind of TMS-like intervention could be used to give oneself temporary pain asymbolia. Then you wouldn’t even have to posit loss of memory to get the “no memory of suffering” element of your scenario.
If I couldn’t remember it, then in what meaningful way have I experienced it?
In the sense that it actually happened to you, like, fo’ real.
Alternatively put, how can you consequentialistically assess something which has no consequence?
Well that’s part of my question and confusion, really. But it does seem worth answering: do you disagree that torture for 100 years followed by memory reversal is indeed a bad thing?
In the sense that it actually happened to you, like, fo’ real.
Did it happen to me, though? What’s the difference between this hypothetical me who’s been tortured for a hundred subjective years before having his memory erased and the actual real me who (presumably) hasn’t? He doesn’t have any more experience of being tortured than I do.
Well that’s part of my question and confusion, really. But it does seem worth answering: do you disagree that torture for 100 years followed by memory reversal is indeed a bad thing?
I agree that it’s a “bad thing” in the sense that it’s an incredibly shitty thing to do to someone, but I don’t believe a scenario in which an action has no consequences can be distinguished from scenarios in which those actions haven’t taken place.
Given that actions tend to have consequences, I’m probably not going to fret too much over it.
If the human race comes to an end with no descendants and aliens never find the remains, can anything that anyone has done be said to have consequences if you start with the premise that qualia don’t matter unless they affect later experiences?
I don’t think they can outside of the scope of being able to experience them.
Here’s a good one: Omega appears before you and offers you an arbitrarily huge amount of money. He then tells you that earlier in the day he predicted whether or not you’d accept his offer. If you did accept, he tortured you horribly for a subjective hundred years and then erased your memory of the event. If you didn’t accept, he didn’t do anything.
Upvoted because I like the analogy; it made me think about why I believe what I do about this point.
I would accept the offer, but I don’t find that inconsistent, for two reasons. First, the original post was asking whether the memory erasure makes up for the pain, which we’re still debating. You’re asking if the memory erasure AND an arbitrarily fat wad of cash make up for the pain, which may be less delicately balanced.
The better point is that I am not only the endpoint of my experiences. At some point, every moment in my life between the present one and death will be “now.” Considering a choice about potential pain which might occur in the future, I know that I will have to live through each of those moments, as they pass, and they will be very unpleasant. There may also be a lot more of them than there are happy, rich, pain-forgotten moments afterwards. That’s the kind of choice we’ve been discussing elsewhere in the thread, and that’s why I care about experiences I will have in the future even if they are forgotten later.
However, when Omega presents me with that choice, I am not choosing whether I will live through those moments. It’s a fait accompli. Regardless of my choice, I will not be aware of having been tortured; the only difference is whether I walk away with the wad of cash.
… assuming that having been tortured for 100 years really will have no lasting effects just because I don’t remember it. I’m making that assumption because I think it’s what you intend the problem imply; if this came up in real life I’d ask some questions about it before choosing. (If I were not allowed to do so, I would say no to be on the safe side.)
This is an interesting question but it seems to conflate this question a bit too much with all the very difficult to resolve decision theory questions about counterfactual issues. This seems at least to me to hinder intuition rather than acting as a good intuition pump.
Also, although this doesn’t bear on the larger question, I think that knowing while I was being tortured that the I who was being tortured was going to be eliminated and wouldn’t get any of the money would make it worse.
Well, even from a strict consequentialist position, it involves a century’s worth of opportunity costs, which is no small thing. Also, every step of the way until the very end, it involves a non-zero chance of not being able to fully reverse the effects, unless you want to invoke an unrealizable condition like knowing for sure that you’ll be able to apply memory reversal when the time comes.
In the sense that it actually happened to you, like, fo’ real.
It happened to a person who shares a past with me.
If there are no consequences then me, and the tortured person, are both futures of “pre-torture-me”, but we’re not really the same person (at least, I’m not the same person zhe would have been by the end of the 100 years)
If I couldn’t remember it, then in what meaningful way have I experienced it?
I’ve done things in the past I don’t remember doing, but I don’t think it’s a good use of the word “experience” to say that I didn’t experience those things. What if my parents tell me about something I did as a kid, which even after being told I don’t recall, but I believe them? (This has happened, of course; introductions to their friends, for example, or places we’ve been.) On which side of the alleged experience/nonexperience line does that fall? For that matter, why are we assuming that something which is not remembered has no consequences? Something could have happened to me when I was young which influenced my tastes or choices but which I still later didn’t remember.
It’s a troublesome word. I don’t feel I have experience of an event I don’t remember, but I presumably have experienced it if I was a participant. I suppose I think a defining characteristic of experience is being able to draw upon it, which I can’t do if I don’t remember it.
Exactly. I might say they’re “events which have occurred” and “events one can recall,” which itself is distinct from “events is aware of,” given other observers who recall them. I suggest we taboo “experience” altogether.
My primary concerns with pain are that they a) coincide with permanent injury, and b) will result in some kind of post-traumatic nervous disorder in the future. Offer me the chance to experience some sort of pain without either of those and I’d probably accept out of sheer curiosity.
But your curiosity won’t be sated because you won’t remember it in the future.
And what if it were 100 years of agony, after which you would return to your present condition and remember nothing?
Opportunity cost: I could have spent those 100 years doing things a lot more pleasurable, and remembered those.
I wonder if some kind of TMS-like intervention could be used to give oneself temporary pain asymbolia. Then you wouldn’t even have to posit loss of memory to get the “no memory of suffering” element of your scenario.
If I couldn’t remember it, then in what meaningful way have I experienced it?
Alternatively put, how can you consequentialistically assess something which has no consequence?
In the sense that it actually happened to you, like, fo’ real.
Well that’s part of my question and confusion, really. But it does seem worth answering: do you disagree that torture for 100 years followed by memory reversal is indeed a bad thing?
Did it happen to me, though? What’s the difference between this hypothetical me who’s been tortured for a hundred subjective years before having his memory erased and the actual real me who (presumably) hasn’t? He doesn’t have any more experience of being tortured than I do.
I agree that it’s a “bad thing” in the sense that it’s an incredibly shitty thing to do to someone, but I don’t believe a scenario in which an action has no consequences can be distinguished from scenarios in which those actions haven’t taken place.
Given that actions tend to have consequences, I’m probably not going to fret too much over it.
If the human race comes to an end with no descendants and aliens never find the remains, can anything that anyone has done be said to have consequences if you start with the premise that qualia don’t matter unless they affect later experiences?
I don’t think they can outside of the scope of being able to experience them.
Here’s a good one: Omega appears before you and offers you an arbitrarily huge amount of money. He then tells you that earlier in the day he predicted whether or not you’d accept his offer. If you did accept, he tortured you horribly for a subjective hundred years and then erased your memory of the event. If you didn’t accept, he didn’t do anything.
Do you accept his offer?
Yes, because I could buy a lot of expected utility with an arbitrarily huge amount of money.
But if the offer were for a million dollars, then I would not accept it.
Upvoted because I like the analogy; it made me think about why I believe what I do about this point.
I would accept the offer, but I don’t find that inconsistent, for two reasons. First, the original post was asking whether the memory erasure makes up for the pain, which we’re still debating. You’re asking if the memory erasure AND an arbitrarily fat wad of cash make up for the pain, which may be less delicately balanced.
The better point is that I am not only the endpoint of my experiences. At some point, every moment in my life between the present one and death will be “now.” Considering a choice about potential pain which might occur in the future, I know that I will have to live through each of those moments, as they pass, and they will be very unpleasant. There may also be a lot more of them than there are happy, rich, pain-forgotten moments afterwards. That’s the kind of choice we’ve been discussing elsewhere in the thread, and that’s why I care about experiences I will have in the future even if they are forgotten later.
However, when Omega presents me with that choice, I am not choosing whether I will live through those moments. It’s a fait accompli. Regardless of my choice, I will not be aware of having been tortured; the only difference is whether I walk away with the wad of cash.
… assuming that having been tortured for 100 years really will have no lasting effects just because I don’t remember it. I’m making that assumption because I think it’s what you intend the problem imply; if this came up in real life I’d ask some questions about it before choosing. (If I were not allowed to do so, I would say no to be on the safe side.)
This is an interesting question but it seems to conflate this question a bit too much with all the very difficult to resolve decision theory questions about counterfactual issues. This seems at least to me to hinder intuition rather than acting as a good intuition pump.
No—just imagining sketchily what I would go through and remembering that I did that to myself would have a cost.
And I can’t help wondering how thorough the memory erasure would be.
Also, although this doesn’t bear on the larger question, I think that knowing while I was being tortured that the I who was being tortured was going to be eliminated and wouldn’t get any of the money would make it worse.
Well, even from a strict consequentialist position, it involves a century’s worth of opportunity costs, which is no small thing. Also, every step of the way until the very end, it involves a non-zero chance of not being able to fully reverse the effects, unless you want to invoke an unrealizable condition like knowing for sure that you’ll be able to apply memory reversal when the time comes.
It happened to a person who shares a past with me.
If there are no consequences then me, and the tortured person, are both futures of “pre-torture-me”, but we’re not really the same person (at least, I’m not the same person zhe would have been by the end of the 100 years)
I’ve done things in the past I don’t remember doing, but I don’t think it’s a good use of the word “experience” to say that I didn’t experience those things. What if my parents tell me about something I did as a kid, which even after being told I don’t recall, but I believe them? (This has happened, of course; introductions to their friends, for example, or places we’ve been.) On which side of the alleged experience/nonexperience line does that fall? For that matter, why are we assuming that something which is not remembered has no consequences? Something could have happened to me when I was young which influenced my tastes or choices but which I still later didn’t remember.
It’s a troublesome word. I don’t feel I have experience of an event I don’t remember, but I presumably have experienced it if I was a participant. I suppose I think a defining characteristic of experience is being able to draw upon it, which I can’t do if I don’t remember it.
Hmm. If it can be used in both ways, perhaps we can be more productive/clear if we use another one.
I don’t think I have another word for it in either context. “Participatory experience” and “retrospective experience”, maybe?
I think I might be having some conceptual trouble with this one, since an event I have no memory of is an experience I haven’t experienced.
Exactly. I might say they’re “events which have occurred” and “events one can recall,” which itself is distinct from “events is aware of,” given other observers who recall them. I suggest we taboo “experience” altogether.