Any sufficiently advanced consequentialism is indistinguishable from its own parody. The present article is sincere, though it might come across as absurd depending on one’s perspective. In order to reduce suffering, we have to decide which things can suffer and how much. Suffering by humans and animals tugs our heartstrings and is morally urgent, but we also have an obligation to make sure that we’re not overlooking negative subjective experiences in other places. I’ve written elsewhere about suffering in insects and digital minds. This piece explores what is arguably the most extreme possibility: seeing at least traces of suffering in fundamental physics.
Recent Posts
- Jagdish Chandra Bose & plant neurobiology
- Invertebrate sentience: A review of the neuroscientific literature
- Some problems of the very intuitive evolutionary emergentist paradigm trying to explain consciousness from neurons
- Only mammals and birds are sentient, according to Nick Humphrey
- Consciousness baffles me, but not the Hard Problem
Categories
Tags
Follow us
Recent Comments
- LLM, DL and generative AI to represent metaphysical hypotheses and theories on LLM, DL and generative AI to represent metaphysical hypotheses and theories.
- Consciousness baffles me, but not the Hard Problem on Consciousness baffles me, but not the Hard Problem
- The Mirror Test: The Key to a Sense of Self? | Mind Matters on List of Animals That Have Passed the Mirror Test
- Optimización, Mejora Total, Gestión de proyectos, Gestión del cambio – Manu Herrán on El imperativo de abolir el sufrimiento: una entrevista con David Pearce
- David Pearce on Longtermism | Qualia Computing on The imperative to abolish suffering: an interview with David Pearce