From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Tue Jun 11 2002 - 10:04:36 MDT
John Clark writes
> "Lee Corbin" <lcorbin@tsoft.com> Wrote:
>
> > 1. Some terrible person manages to determine exactly the
> > courses of all the atoms in an actual historical event
> > in which some Nazis tortured a little girl to death.
> > This perverted soul then causes an exact re-enactment
> > of this particular horror. When challenged that his
> > activity is immoral, he replies: "No. you see, it makes
> > no difference to the person whether they run once or
> > twice. Therefore the suffering of the girl in *this*
> > run is [illusory], and it cannot matter to her."
> Yes, I would be uncomfortable with that, part of me would feel it somehow
> increases the suffering, but then part of me would feel exactly the same way
> if I was just watching a recording of the torture. In fact that's what I am
> seeing, and anyway, trying to determine how one would feel in various
> situations is not a valid method in determining what reality is like because
> the emotions of even the best of us are a mass of illogic and
> contradictions.
While I do admire your unflinching devotion to consistency and
logic---to the degree that for a small reward you would not
object to the repetition of the infliction of so much pain---
you surely have doubts.
Of course, "determining how one would feel in various situations"
is hardly an air-tight guide to belief, but it can be helpful!
But your comparison of an actual physical denouement (the torture
of a little girl) with a video recording of it is absurd, and
appears to be warping your thinking about this. Let's be clear:
I assume that you would express **extreme** disapproval of the
events the *first* time that they occur. (It's possible that you
should review the reasons that you disapprove so much. Like you,
I would disapprove equally much of a Turing Machine undergoing
an isomorphic succession of states.)
In a video recording there is no experience (except in the mind
of a viewer who may shut his eyes). But the pain the little
girl experiences is *exactly* the same as it was the first time.
If the first time was five billion years ago in a galaxy far
away, it strains credulity that you would endorse (for a small
payment) the repetition of this horror. The little girl is
a physical machine here and *now*, and she is experiencing
torment here and now, and it's hard to believe that your values
are dependant on academic knowledge of extremely remote events.
Moreover, your consistency on this question is put to a further
test: suppose that the re-enactment of the original torture
session is *almost* identical, except that one atom in one of
the eyelashes of the little girl is absent. I doubt that you
switch over to complete and horrified disapproval of the events?
Lee
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