The Simulacra View has (as I’m sure you’re aware) a distinctly Repugnant Conclusion-ish flavor.
One thing that’s not entirely clear to me is the claim that it wouldn’t be possible in principle to measure simulacra welfare. The argument seems to be that measurement is pointless because the subject ceases to exist by the time we obtain it. But this (I think) conflates the epistemic validity of a measurement with the temporal persistence of the subject. A measurement of suffering at time t remains valid evidence that suffering occurred at t, regardless of whether the subject still exists at t+1.
Also, such measurements could be valuable for determining the welfare of future simulacra, if we have reason to think they’ll correlate — for instance, if they’re generated by the same process or systematically make similar welfare reports.
Nice post!
The Simulacra View has (as I’m sure you’re aware) a distinctly Repugnant Conclusion-ish flavor.
One thing that’s not entirely clear to me is the claim that it wouldn’t be possible in principle to measure simulacra welfare. The argument seems to be that measurement is pointless because the subject ceases to exist by the time we obtain it. But this (I think) conflates the epistemic validity of a measurement with the temporal persistence of the subject. A measurement of suffering at time t remains valid evidence that suffering occurred at t, regardless of whether the subject still exists at t+1.
Also, such measurements could be valuable for determining the welfare of future simulacra, if we have reason to think they’ll correlate — for instance, if they’re generated by the same process or systematically make similar welfare reports.