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.
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.