Thanks for sharing! I wasn’t aware of the case for thinking that the right hemisphere has so much less welfare capacity than the left. If this is true, it leaves me thinking that the sum of the welfare capacities of the two parts of the split brain patient is significantly less than 1, rather than the 0.99 I went with in the example.
It’s interesting that this EA Forum post forms so much of the basis for its answer to the second question. I wonder if it’s because so little has been written on this, or just because the way you asked the question used language especially similar to this post.
Even though the Gemini report seems to represent my view (what it calls the “divisive model”) and Fischer’s view (the “additive model”) well at first, it gets pretty confused in a few places:
In Section 3.1, it defines hedonistic welfare per unit time in precisely the way I’m arguing against, where there’s no “size” dimension and all it means to be “a being with a higher [welfare] capacity” is that you “can experience ‘deeper’ pain or ‘higher’ pleasure”.
It says that the divisive model is captured by the quote
“The view that expanding a mind from one hemisphere to two… would increase its welfare capacity by much less than 100%—indeed, only by something like 1%.”
It then says it
reject[s] the “Strict Divisive” model because pain does not dilute with volume,
(and also rejects the “Strict Additive” model), and goes with what it frames as something in the middle, but which is fully the additive model after adjusting for the fact that, in its view, the right hemisphere lacks various capacities. -- But, despite the counterintuitive terminology it’s chosen, it’s the Additive view, not the Divisive view, on which “pain dilutes with volume”. The Additive view says that total pain falls if you reconnect the two hemispheres of a split-brain patient in the ice bath, because a welfare subject’s pain is something like an average of pain across the phenomenal field rather than a sum.
Thanks for sharing! I wasn’t aware of the case for thinking that the right hemisphere has so much less welfare capacity than the left. If this is true, it leaves me thinking that the sum of the welfare capacities of the two parts of the split brain patient is significantly less than 1, rather than the 0.99 I went with in the example.
It’s interesting that this EA Forum post forms so much of the basis for its answer to the second question. I wonder if it’s because so little has been written on this, or just because the way you asked the question used language especially similar to this post.
Even though the Gemini report seems to represent my view (what it calls the “divisive model”) and Fischer’s view (the “additive model”) well at first, it gets pretty confused in a few places:
In Section 3.1, it defines hedonistic welfare per unit time in precisely the way I’m arguing against, where there’s no “size” dimension and all it means to be “a being with a higher [welfare] capacity” is that you “can experience ‘deeper’ pain or ‘higher’ pleasure”.
It says that the divisive model is captured by the quote
It then says it
(and also rejects the “Strict Additive” model), and goes with what it frames as something in the middle, but which is fully the additive model after adjusting for the fact that, in its view, the right hemisphere lacks various capacities. -- But, despite the counterintuitive terminology it’s chosen, it’s the Additive view, not the Divisive view, on which “pain dilutes with volume”. The Additive view says that total pain falls if you reconnect the two hemispheres of a split-brain patient in the ice bath, because a welfare subject’s pain is something like an average of pain across the phenomenal field rather than a sum.