So is the idea to ground these tradeoffs in preferences, but consider only conscious preferences about conscious experiences themselves? Furthermore, the degree of pleasantness or suffering would be determined by the strengths of these kinds of preferences (which we might hypothesize to fall on a cardinal scale).
If I had just gotten out of an experience machine, I’d be extremely upset. I don’t think I would actually get back into the machine, but even if I did, I think this would only be to relieve my suffering. It seems like this framing introduces a different kind of bias. If my experiences in the outside world were really horrible, I’d be motivated to leave it. If the outside world were not so horrible as to drive me to chronic depression or I could accomplish more good outside than inside, I’d stay out.
So is the idea to ground these tradeoffs in preferences, but consider only conscious preferences about conscious experiences themselves? Furthermore, the degree of pleasantness or suffering would be determined by the strengths of these kinds of preferences (which we might hypothesize to fall on a cardinal scale).
If I had just gotten out of an experience machine, I’d be extremely upset. I don’t think I would actually get back into the machine, but even if I did, I think this would only be to relieve my suffering. It seems like this framing introduces a different kind of bias. If my experiences in the outside world were really horrible, I’d be motivated to leave it. If the outside world were not so horrible as to drive me to chronic depression or I could accomplish more good outside than inside, I’d stay out.