While I agree that the suffering of electrons is unlikely to matter or be real, this post seems to only attack a weak strawman. Obviously a single electron isn’t conscious in the same way a human is, but a large collection of atoms and electrons obviously can be (as is demonstrated by the human brain). The argument for electron suffering is that there is no simple binary conscious/non-conscious distinction, that there are gradients, and that while any single electron might not be much of a moral patient, there sure are a lot of them and they might add up (similar to how insect suffering might outweigh human suffering, given the sheer number of insects).
Mild addenda: my current understanding is that a single electron can’t suffer because electrons don’t have states that vary (and I agree with at least that bit of the OP that things need to have different states for moral patient-hood), but it’s at least possibly-plausible that a small group of electrons could be a (low weight) moral patient.
Electrons have physical properties that vary all the time: position, velocity, distance to the nearest proton, etc (ignoring Heisenberg uncertainty complications). But yeah, these variables rely on the electron being embedded in an environment.
Nod. I don’t know if I can articulate this rigorously, but I have a sense that for a thing to suffer, the thing needs to have “internal variable state”. So a system-containing-electrons can (possibly) suffer but an electron can’t.
Moreover, they can vary with changes to the environment that aren’t changes to the electron. They aren’t proper or intrinsic to the electron, but intuitively ones qualia are intrinsic.
While I agree that the suffering of electrons is unlikely to matter or be real, this post seems to only attack a weak strawman. Obviously a single electron isn’t conscious in the same way a human is, but a large collection of atoms and electrons obviously can be (as is demonstrated by the human brain). The argument for electron suffering is that there is no simple binary conscious/non-conscious distinction, that there are gradients, and that while any single electron might not be much of a moral patient, there sure are a lot of them and they might add up (similar to how insect suffering might outweigh human suffering, given the sheer number of insects).
Mild addenda: my current understanding is that a single electron can’t suffer because electrons don’t have states that vary (and I agree with at least that bit of the OP that things need to have different states for moral patient-hood), but it’s at least possibly-plausible that a small group of electrons could be a (low weight) moral patient.
Electrons have physical properties that vary all the time: position, velocity, distance to the nearest proton, etc (ignoring Heisenberg uncertainty complications). But yeah, these variables rely on the electron being embedded in an environment.
Nod. I don’t know if I can articulate this rigorously, but I have a sense that for a thing to suffer, the thing needs to have “internal variable state”. So a system-containing-electrons can (possibly) suffer but an electron can’t.
Moreover, they can vary with changes to the environment that aren’t changes to the electron. They aren’t proper or intrinsic to the electron, but intuitively ones qualia are intrinsic.
How do you know that they aren’t intrinsic to the electron?