I’ve been thinking that there is a “fallacious, yet reasonable as a default/fallback” way to choose moral circles based on the Anthropic principle, which is closely related to my article “The Putin Fallacy―Let’s Try It Out”. It’s based on the idea that consciousness is “real” (part of the territory, not the map), in the same sense that quarks are real but cars are not. In this view, we say: P-zombies may be possible, but if consciousness is real (part of the territory), then by the Anthropic principle we are not P-Zombies, since P-zombies by definition do not have real experiences. (To look at it another way, P-Zombies are intelligences that do not concentrate qualia or valence, so in a solar system with P-zombies, something that experiences qualia is as likely to be found alongside one proton as any other, and there are about 10^20 times more protons in the sun as there are in the minds of everyone on Zombie Earth combined.) I also think that real qualia/valence is the fundamental object of moral value (also reasonable IMO, for why should an object with no qualia and no valence have intrinsic worth?)
By the Anthropic principle, it is reasonable to assume that whatever we happen to be is somewhat typical among beings that have qualia/valence, and thus, among beings that have moral worth. By this reasoning, it is unlikely that the sum total |W| of all qualia/valence in the world is dramatically larger than the sum total |H| of all qualia/valence among humans, because if |W| >> |H|, you and I are unlikely to find ourselves in set H. I caution people that while reasonable, this view is necessarily uncertain and thus fallacious and morally hazardous if it is treated as a certainty. Yet if we are to allocate our resources in the absence of any scientific clarity about which animals have qualia/valence, I think we should take this idea into consideration.
P.S. given the election results, I hope more people are doing now the soul-searching we should’ve done in 2016. I proposed my intervention “Let’s Make the Truth Easier to Find” on EA Forum in March 2023. It’s necessarily a partial solution, but I’m very interested to know why EAs generally weren’t interested in it. I do encourage people to investigate for themselves why Mr. Post Truth himself has roughly the same popularity as the average Democrat―twice.
I’ve been thinking that there is a “fallacious, yet reasonable as a default/fallback” way to choose moral circles based on the Anthropic principle, which is closely related to my article “The Putin Fallacy―Let’s Try It Out”. It’s based on the idea that consciousness is “real” (part of the territory, not the map), in the same sense that quarks are real but cars are not. In this view, we say: P-zombies may be possible, but if consciousness is real (part of the territory), then by the Anthropic principle we are not P-Zombies, since P-zombies by definition do not have real experiences. (To look at it another way, P-Zombies are intelligences that do not concentrate qualia or valence, so in a solar system with P-zombies, something that experiences qualia is as likely to be found alongside one proton as any other, and there are about 10^20 times more protons in the sun as there are in the minds of everyone on Zombie Earth combined.) I also think that real qualia/valence is the fundamental object of moral value (also reasonable IMO, for why should an object with no qualia and no valence have intrinsic worth?)
By the Anthropic principle, it is reasonable to assume that whatever we happen to be is somewhat typical among beings that have qualia/valence, and thus, among beings that have moral worth. By this reasoning, it is unlikely that the sum total |W| of all qualia/valence in the world is dramatically larger than the sum total |H| of all qualia/valence among humans, because if |W| >> |H|, you and I are unlikely to find ourselves in set H. I caution people that while reasonable, this view is necessarily uncertain and thus fallacious and morally hazardous if it is treated as a certainty. Yet if we are to allocate our resources in the absence of any scientific clarity about which animals have qualia/valence, I think we should take this idea into consideration.
P.S. given the election results, I hope more people are doing now the soul-searching we should’ve done in 2016. I proposed my intervention “Let’s Make the Truth Easier to Find” on EA Forum in March 2023. It’s necessarily a partial solution, but I’m very interested to know why EAs generally weren’t interested in it. I do encourage people to investigate for themselves why Mr. Post Truth himself has roughly the same popularity as the average Democrat―twice.