There are a lot of organizations working to reduce suffering. There are also a large number of organizations researching sentience, or at least consciousness. Even others that do both, as we do. What is the difference in our propossal?
We do not fall in love with theories of sentience
In general, most of us have some intuition about the origin of the ability to feel, and most likely it is related to the existence of biological brains. However, we can still ask ourselves some difficult questions to answer:
Why are brains involved in sentience? What properties do brains have in relation to the ability to suffer and enjoy? Could suffer and enjoy something that is not exactly a brain?
Depending on the answers we give to these questions we can assume or not the sentience in different types of objects, and therefore consider them morally or not.
Believing in a single theory of sentience discarding all others would be a great position if that theory, with all its details, were correct. But we can not be sure of this, and in the case of not being true the hypothesis that we have assumed as valid, the resources allocated to reduce suffering (and / or maximize happiness) could be very inefficient and in some cases even ineffective.
Maps and simulations to undestand and assess theories of sentience
This is why we do not fall in love with theories of sentience. We propose that simulations can help a lot to understand these different positions. Even more, if we combine maps on theories about sentience with simulations of sentience, we will be able to fill the empty gaps that exist between the theories that have been proposed. We believe that this approach, with the use of maps and simulations, are adequate techniques or methods to contribute to the proposed objective of develop, disseminate and promote the research on sentience oriented to a better world, and particularly, reducing involuntary and useless suffering.
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