“In my mind, unconditional love is closely tied with utilitarianism: When I realize that an organism feels happiness and suffering, at that point I realize that the organism matters and deserves care and kindness. In this sense, you could say the only “condition” of my love is sentience.”—Brian Tomasik
I just wish we could know for sure.… As much as I try for my love to work in sentience probabilities it ain’t easy. And I’m more of a math guy than most!
I fully agree with that caveat! If “love” depends on sentience (not to mention the moral weights we put on top of that), then it seems pretty underdefined (for what it’s worth, I still haven’t grasped Tomasik’s strange definition of sentience). I think I enjoy this quote mostly for the fuzzy feels it gives me, less so than for its action-guidance.
“In my mind, unconditional love is closely tied with utilitarianism: When I realize that an organism feels happiness and suffering, at that point I realize that the organism matters and deserves care and kindness. In this sense, you could say the only “condition” of my love is sentience.”—Brian Tomasik
I just wish we could know for sure.… As much as I try for my love to work in sentience probabilities it ain’t easy. And I’m more of a math guy than most!
I fully agree with that caveat! If “love” depends on sentience (not to mention the moral weights we put on top of that), then it seems pretty underdefined (for what it’s worth, I still haven’t grasped Tomasik’s strange definition of sentience). I think I enjoy this quote mostly for the fuzzy feels it gives me, less so than for its action-guidance.