I’m really grateful for this post and the resulting discussion (and I’m curating the post). I’ve uncritically used neuron counts as a proxy in informal discussions (more than once), and have seen them used in this way a lot more.
It helped me to draw out a diagram as I was reading this post (would appreciate corrections! although I probably won’t spend time trying to make the diagram nicer or cleaner). My understanding is that the post sketched out the rough case for neuron counts as a proxy for moral weight as predictors of the grey properties below (information-processing capacity, intelligence, extent of valenced consciousness, and the number of morally relevant thresholds crossed by the organism), and then disputed the (predictive power of the) arrows I’ve greyed out and written on.
Wow, this is really cool, Lizka, thanks! I think it’s a really nice visualization of the post and report. I would say, in regards to the larger argument, that @lukeprog is right that hidden qualia/conscious subsystems is another key route people try to take between neuron count and moral weight, so the full picture of the overall debate would probably need to include that. (and again, RP’s report on that should be published next week).
Neuron count relative to body-size, relative to the average ratio between the brain size/neuron count and body size [update: “encephalization quotient”], matters I think for intelligence and other capabilities. I think I am missing these, rather crucial I think, qualifications (and these are quite commonly used within biology). Is that correct? And perhaps that is related to this other key route you mention here. And consequently there is the link between higher intelligence or capabilities (such as self-consciousness) and suffering, for which I agree arguments can be made in either direction. And I agree bare neuron count is a bad proxy, and against that the proposed non-relation to body-size can also I think be productively employed as a reductio ad absurdum. Cheers!!
Thanks, yeah, I agree those are better than just raw neuron count and we discuss those a bit more in the longer report. But also the objections are meant to apply to even these measures.
I’m really grateful for this post and the resulting discussion (and I’m curating the post). I’ve uncritically used neuron counts as a proxy in informal discussions (more than once), and have seen them used in this way a lot more.
It helped me to draw out a diagram as I was reading this post (would appreciate corrections! although I probably won’t spend time trying to make the diagram nicer or cleaner). My understanding is that the post sketched out the rough case for neuron counts as a proxy for moral weight as predictors of the grey properties below (information-processing capacity, intelligence, extent of valenced consciousness, and the number of morally relevant thresholds crossed by the organism), and then disputed the (predictive power of the) arrows I’ve greyed out and written on.
Wow, this is really cool, Lizka, thanks! I think it’s a really nice visualization of the post and report. I would say, in regards to the larger argument, that @lukeprog is right that hidden qualia/conscious subsystems is another key route people try to take between neuron count and moral weight, so the full picture of the overall debate would probably need to include that. (and again, RP’s report on that should be published next week).
Neuron count relative to body-size, relative to the average ratio between the brain size/neuron count and body size [update: “encephalization quotient”], matters I think for intelligence and other capabilities. I think I am missing these, rather crucial I think, qualifications (and these are quite commonly used within biology). Is that correct? And perhaps that is related to this other key route you mention here. And consequently there is the link between higher intelligence or capabilities (such as self-consciousness) and suffering, for which I agree arguments can be made in either direction. And I agree bare neuron count is a bad proxy, and against that the proposed non-relation to body-size can also I think be productively employed as a reductio ad absurdum. Cheers!!
Thanks, yeah, I agree those are better than just raw neuron count and we discuss those a bit more in the longer report. But also the objections are meant to apply to even these measures.