What does it mean for it to have a preference if it’s never been run/​conscious? Is it functionality/​potential, so that if it were run in a certain way, that preference would become conscious? In what ways are we allowed to run it for this? I’d imagine you’d want to exclude destroying or changing connections before it runs, but how do we draw lines non-arbitrarily? Do drugs, brain stimulation, dreams or hallucinations count?
It seems that we’d all have many preferences we’ve never been conscious of, because our brains haven’t been run in the right ways to make them conscious.
I wouldn’t care about the preferences that won’t become conscious, so if the mind is never run, nothing will matter to them. If the mind is run, then some things might matter, but not every preference it could but won’t experience.
I think there are some similarities with the ethics of abortion. I think there’s no harm to a fetus if aborted before consciousness, but, conditional on becoming conscious, there are ways to harm the future person the fetus is expected to become, e.g. drinking during pregnancy.
What does it mean for it to have a preference if it’s never been run/​conscious? Is it functionality/​potential, so that if it were run in a certain way, that preference would become conscious? In what ways are we allowed to run it for this? I’d imagine you’d want to exclude destroying or changing connections before it runs, but how do we draw lines non-arbitrarily? Do drugs, brain stimulation, dreams or hallucinations count?
It seems that we’d all have many preferences we’ve never been conscious of, because our brains haven’t been run in the right ways to make them conscious.
I wouldn’t care about the preferences that won’t become conscious, so if the mind is never run, nothing will matter to them. If the mind is run, then some things might matter, but not every preference it could but won’t experience.
I think there are some similarities with the ethics of abortion. I think there’s no harm to a fetus if aborted before consciousness, but, conditional on becoming conscious, there are ways to harm the future person the fetus is expected to become, e.g. drinking during pregnancy.