Max_Carpendale

Karma: 889

Max_Carpendale Feb 9, 2020, 10:23 AM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Kirsten’s comment on: Who should give sperm/eggs?
I think you can travel to another country to donate eggs there. I think in general you get paid more in other countries if you are of certain demographics.

Max_Carpendale Jan 26, 2020, 7:52 PM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: In praise of unhistoric heroism
There’s is a trap that consequentialists can easily fall into that the author describes beautifully in this post. I think the solution solution within consequentialism is to see that consequentialism doesn’t recommend that we we only praise the highest achievers. Praise and blame are only justified within consequentialism when they produce good consequences, and it’s beneficial to praise a wide variety of people, most especially people who are trying their hardest to improve the world.

For a fuller spectrum account of what it is to live a moral life, you can add ‘virtue consequentialism’ to your consequentialism. This position is just the observation that within consequentialism, virtues can be defined as character traits that lead to good consequences, and it’s useful to cultivate these.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5489019-uneasy-virtue

Max_Carpendale Jan 25, 2020, 5:06 PM
8 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Aaron Gertler 🔸’s comment on: Doing good is as good as it ever was
I’ve been in the community since about 2011, and I’ve also noticed this happening in myself and quite a few others who have been in the community for a long time. I’m not aware of any data on the subject. Denise’s explanation of this and this post sounds right to me.

Max_Carpendale Nov 23, 2019, 5:36 PM
19 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Kirsten’s comment on: EA Hotel Fundraiser 7: Pitch focusing on case studies with counterfactuals
I came to the hotel as I was finishing a contract for Rethink Prioritites, worked for them there for one month, then did indepenent research. Now I am employed at an EA org again, and I am paying cost price.

Max_Carpendale Nov 19, 2019, 8:44 PM
3 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Jason Schukraft’s comment on: Opinion: Estimating Invertebrate Sentience
I agree that sentience, at least as we’ve defined it, is an all-or-nothing phenomenon (which is a common view in philosophy but not as common in neuroscience).

What do you think of the argument that there may be cases where it’s unclear if the term is appropriate or not. So there would be a grey area where there is a “sort of” sentience. I’ve talked to some people who think that this grey area might be taxonomically large, including most invertebrates.

Max_Carpendale Oct 28, 2019, 8:08 PM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Will Bradshaw’s comment on: How worried should I be about a childless Disneyland?
Yeah, I meant it to be synonymous with agent.

Max_Carpendale Oct 28, 2019, 7:05 PM
3 points
0 ∶ 0
on: How worried should I be about a childless Disneyland?
Do you mainly see these scenarios as likely because you don’t think there is likely to be many beings in future worlds or because you think that the beings that exist in those future worlds are unlikely to be conscious?

I had some thoughts about the second case. I’ve done some research on consciousness, but I still feel quite lost when it comes to this type of question.

It definitely seems like some machine minds could be conscious (we are basically in existence proof of that), but I don’t know how to think about if a specific architecture would be required. My intuition is that most intelligent architectures other than something like a lookup table would be conscious, but don’t think that intuitions based on anything substantial.

By the way, there is a strange hard sci-fi horror novel called Blindsight that basically “argues” that the future belongs to nonconscious minds and this scenario is likely.

Max_Carpendale Oct 28, 2019, 5:54 PM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: gavintaylor’s comment on: Is there a clear writeup summarizing the arguments for why deep ecology is wrong?
Thanks!

I personally would disagree that variety of experience is morally relevant. Obviously, most people enjoy variety of their own experiences, but that’s already waded into the total hedonistic utilitarian equation because it makes us happier. So I don’t think that we need to add it as a separate thing that has intrinsic moral value. Looking at diversity can also be aesthetically pleasing for us, but that gets waited in to the equation because it makes us happy, and so, again, I don’t think we need to say it has intrinsic moral value. I don’t think our aesthetic appreciation of biodiversity is a very significant source of happiness, though, compared to the well-being of the much larger number of animals involved.

I think what you said makes sense given that moral position. I haven’t heard a name for the position that diversity of experience is intrinsically morally significant, but I have a friend who I think argued for a similar position, and I’ll ask him.

Max_Carpendale Oct 26, 2019, 10:05 AM
13 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Is there a clear writeup summarizing the arguments for why deep ecology is wrong?
Animal Ethics has written about this. Here are some of our relevant posts on the subject. Hopefully they are helpful.https://www.animal-Ethics.org/sentience-section/relevance-of-sentience/why-we-should-consider-sentient-beings-rather-than-ecosystems/ https://www.animal-ethics.org/sentience-section/relevance-of-sentience/why-we-should-consider-individuals-rather-than-species/ https://www.animal-ethics.org/give-moral-consideration-sentient-beings-rather-living-beings/

Max_Carpendale Sep 19, 2019, 9:13 AM
17 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Does improving animal rights now improve the far future?
Imagine you heard about alien civilization that was pivoted towards colonizing the stars. But most of these aliens had almost no moral recognition and some of them were raised in inhumane conditions to be killed for trivial reasons for the other aliens. If I heard about this situation, I would be pretty concerned about what the aliens would do when they started colonizing the stars. I wouldn’t be rooting for them by trying to prevent existential risk instead of trying to improve their values.

But of course, that’s a description of our society. There are some additional details about our society that make me more hopeful about it, but it seems quite weird to say that improving our values in this way wouldn’t be important.

Max_Carpendale Sep 7, 2019, 5:11 PM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Richard Möhn’s comment on: My recommendations for RSI treatment
Thanks for your comment! I read your article and left a comment on it here. I’ll try to think more about psychosomatics and add a section on it when I have time.

Max_Carpendale Aug 25, 2019, 11:40 AM
11 points
0 ∶ 0
on: The Moral Circle is not a Circle
It seems to me like when most EA’s are talking about an expanding circle what we are talking about is either an expanding circle of moral concern towards 1) all sentient beings or 2) equal consideration of interests for all entities (with the background understanding that only sentient beings have interests).

Given this definition of what it means to expand the moral circle, I don’t think Gwern’s talk of a narrowing moral circle is relevant. For the list of entities that Gwern has described us as having lost moral concern for, we did not lose moral concern for them for reasons having to do with their sentience. Even when these entities are plausibly sentient (such as with sacred animals) it seems like people’s moral concern for them is primarily based on other factors. Therefore they should not count as data points in the trend of how our moral circle is or is not expanding.

Also, quite plausibly, a big reason why we have lost concern for these entities is because of an increasingly scientifically and metaphysically accurate view of the world that causes us to not regard these entities to be seen as special, to have interests, or even to exist at all.

Max_Carpendale Aug 9, 2019, 11:49 AM
6 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Brian_Tomasik’s comment on: Interview with Michael Tye about invertebrate consciousness
Thank you! :)

Thanks for mentioning C. elegans behavioural flexibility. I had meant to comment about that, but forgot to. That’s a great paper on the subject.

I think people sometimes unfairly minimize the cognitive abilities of some invertebrates because it gives them cleaner and more straightforward answers about which organisms are conscious, according to their preferred theory.

Max_Carpendale 8 Aug 2019 14:11 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: nil’s comment on: Interview with Michael Tye about invertebrate consciousness
You are very welcome! :)

That passage is also one of my favourite parts of his answers, thanks for highlighting it.

I’ll take a look at that David Pearce post, thanks for the link.

Thanks for pointing at the typo, fixed it now.

Interview with Michael Tye about invertebrate consciousness

Max_Carpendale8 Aug 2019 10:13 UTC

32 points

5 comments5 min readEA link

Max_Carpendale 19 Jul 2019 19:45 UTC
8 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Ways Frugality Increases Productivity
Another way that frugality can improve productivity is that it can reduce the amount of time you spend buying, looking after, organizing, tidying, and thinking about physical possessions (because you probably have fewer of them). Of course, people who aren’t frugal don’t necessarily have more things, but they tend to have more of them.

Max_Carpendale 17 Jul 2019 17:50 UTC
9 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Six-month update and summer fundraiser at Wild Animal Initiative
Bravo!

I’m particularly excited about the paper submissions and the increased academic expertise of your staff. That seems very important in getting this work taken more seriously.

Max_Carpendale 17 Jul 2019 17:41 UTC
5 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Invertebrate Welfare Cause Profile
Excellent post!
Staying within the phylum, snails are consumed by humans in many cultures[53] and have attracted some attention as an edge case of consciousness in philosophical circles. A representative from class Gastropoda would therefore be useful.
It looks like there is a small error here. Aplysia was included on the table and is from class Gastropoda.

Max_Carpendale 22 Jun 2019 13:09 UTC
8 points
0 ∶ 0
on: What Do Unconscious Processes in Humans Tell Us About Sentience?
Great article! I like the conceptual clarification that you do about what it means to say that a process is unconscious and how people use this term inconsistently in the literature. I’ve never seen that put so well and it’s important.

I was wondering what you think of cases where a good idea ‘spontaneously’ occurs to someone while there thinking about something unrelated or while their mind is wandering. I only know anecdotes about this phenomenon, but I think it’s a widespread phenomenon that most people would experience something like this themselves.

Some people have some of their best ideas in this way and it seems to satisfy both criteria for being an unconscious process. I am not sure if it’s directly related to any of the potential consciousness indicating features, but it seems like an example of very complex cognition being unconscious. Albeit it’s a bit murky how it occurs.

Max_Carpendale 22 Jun 2019 12:50 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: nil’s comment on: Interview with Shelley Adamo about invertebrate consciousness
Thanks! Good thoughts!

I’m also not sure if we know how expensive emotions are. In particular, even if some emotions are complicated, I’m not sure if the basic conscious experience of pain is complicated (at least the affective part of the experience, maybe not the sensory part). It subjectively seems like quite a simple feeling, but I don’t know much about this, and I’d like to learn more.

Max_Carpendale

In­ter­view with Michael Tye about in­ver­te­brate consciousness

Interview with Michael Tye about invertebrate consciousness