Fascinating discussion between the two of you here, thanks.
I have one comment: I don’t think their welfare being exactly 0 should have negligible probability. If we consider an animal like the soil nematode, I think there should be a significant probability assigned to the possibility that they are not sentient, unless I’m missing something?
Yes, absolutely right about 0 being possible and reaonably likely. Maybe I’d say “average welfare conditional on having any welfare at all”. I only added that so that X% likely to be negative meant (100-X)% likely to be positive, in order to simplify the argument.
I think “probability of sentience”*”expected welfare conditional on sentience” >> (1 - “probability of sentience”)*”expected welfare conditional on non-sentience”, such that the expected welfare can be estimated from the 1st expression. However, I would say the expected welfare conditional on non-sentience is not exactly 0. For this to be the case, one would have to be certain that a welfare of exactly 0 follows from failing to satisfy the sentience criteria, which is not possible. Yet, in practice, it could still be the case that there is a decent probability mass on a welfare close to 0.
Fascinating discussion between the two of you here, thanks.
I have one comment: I don’t think their welfare being exactly 0 should have negligible probability. If we consider an animal like the soil nematode, I think there should be a significant probability assigned to the possibility that they are not sentient, unless I’m missing something?
Yes, absolutely right about 0 being possible and reaonably likely. Maybe I’d say “average welfare conditional on having any welfare at all”. I only added that so that X% likely to be negative meant (100-X)% likely to be positive, in order to simplify the argument.
Thanks, Toby! Credits go to Michael.
I think “probability of sentience”*”expected welfare conditional on sentience” >> (1 - “probability of sentience”)*”expected welfare conditional on non-sentience”, such that the expected welfare can be estimated from the 1st expression. However, I would say the expected welfare conditional on non-sentience is not exactly 0. For this to be the case, one would have to be certain that a welfare of exactly 0 follows from failing to satisfy the sentience criteria, which is not possible. Yet, in practice, it could still be the case that there is a decent probability mass on a welfare close to 0.