Thanks for the post. You raise some interesting points about the nature of consciousness that should give us all some humility when talking about the subject.
As a person involved with effective altruism, I am someone who likes to attach probabilities to empirical claims.
Therefore, I am wondering about the specifics of your probabilistic credences regarding a few questions pertinent to the theme of estimating qualia.
A couple of easy questions to start:
You wrote that you are “pretty sure” that humans experience qualia. What is your percent credence that other humans experience qualia?
You wrote that you are “uncertain enough” about the likelihood of qualia mammals and birds for you to refrain from eating them. What is your percent credence that any mammals or birds experience qualia?What percent uncertainty do you have and why is it better to not apply that uncertainty to fish and shrimp?
Since mammals and birds are (presumably) unable to use meaningful and non-regurgitated language in the sense that you said would be sufficient for proof of qualia, what evidence do we have for their experience of qualia?
What is your percent credence that any species of fish or shrimp experience any form of qualia?
What percent credence in a certain species of fish or shrimp having qualia would you deem sufficient to stop eating them?
(Note: this question is assuming that current typical farming practices remain the same (i.e. lack of normal biological function due to immense overcrowding, the vast majority of fish suffocate to death, many fish are fed other fish that suffocate or are crushed to death))
A couple of tougher questions, if you are game: Do you have any sort of study supporting the notion that higher empathy correlates with higher subjective experience of qualia? I am open to the notion, but I would need more empirical evidence to jump on board.
Assuming some types of fishes and shrimps could experience qualia, how do you think it would compare to that of humans or other mammals qualitatively? How do you think mammalian qualia compares to that of humans?
What is your percent credence that evolution designed pain and pleasure to be even more saliently experienced for less intelligent animals than for intelligent animals like humans, given that they cannot reason as much and presumably must operate more off instinct and intuition?
For example, the behavior of humans is motivated by reasoning to an extent that presumably it is not for a dog (e.g. if a human sees an unfamiliar piece of food on a counter, they might not eat it under the presumption that someone else left it in there whereas dogs will unthinkingly eat food from the counter without considering whether or not it is for them).
Assuming equal accessibility, taste, nutritional value, and social acceptance to eating fish, what percent credence would you need in other humans having qualia to begin eating them?
Do you think it’s possible that some arguments for eating animals tend to be subject to motivated reasoning due to the convenience and deliciousness of eating them? What percent of these arguments would you say are colored by this phenomenon?
I know some of the questions I asked might be slightly provocative, but I was very impressed at how deeply you have thought about these questions. Very few other people consider their practices to that degree. I hope you can keep pushing me and the rest of the EA community to think deeply about these questions.
Hi Mikhail,
Thanks for the post. You raise some interesting points about the nature of consciousness that should give us all some humility when talking about the subject.
As a person involved with effective altruism, I am someone who likes to attach probabilities to empirical claims.
Therefore, I am wondering about the specifics of your probabilistic credences regarding a few questions pertinent to the theme of estimating qualia.
A couple of easy questions to start:
You wrote that you are “pretty sure” that humans experience qualia. What is your percent credence that other humans experience qualia?
You wrote that you are “uncertain enough” about the likelihood of qualia mammals and birds for you to refrain from eating them. What is your percent credence that any mammals or birds experience qualia? What percent uncertainty do you have and why is it better to not apply that uncertainty to fish and shrimp?
Since mammals and birds are (presumably) unable to use meaningful and non-regurgitated language in the sense that you said would be sufficient for proof of qualia, what evidence do we have for their experience of qualia?
What is your percent credence that any species of fish or shrimp experience any form of qualia?
What percent credence in a certain species of fish or shrimp having qualia would you deem sufficient to stop eating them?
(Note: this question is assuming that current typical farming practices remain the same (i.e. lack of normal biological function due to immense overcrowding, the vast majority of fish suffocate to death, many fish are fed other fish that suffocate or are crushed to death))
A couple of tougher questions, if you are game:
Do you have any sort of study supporting the notion that higher empathy correlates with higher subjective experience of qualia? I am open to the notion, but I would need more empirical evidence to jump on board.
Assuming some types of fishes and shrimps could experience qualia, how do you think it would compare to that of humans or other mammals qualitatively? How do you think mammalian qualia compares to that of humans?
What is your percent credence that evolution designed pain and pleasure to be even more saliently experienced for less intelligent animals than for intelligent animals like humans, given that they cannot reason as much and presumably must operate more off instinct and intuition?
For example, the behavior of humans is motivated by reasoning to an extent that presumably it is not for a dog (e.g. if a human sees an unfamiliar piece of food on a counter, they might not eat it under the presumption that someone else left it in there whereas dogs will unthinkingly eat food from the counter without considering whether or not it is for them).
Assuming equal accessibility, taste, nutritional value, and social acceptance to eating fish, what percent credence would you need in other humans having qualia to begin eating them?
Do you think it’s possible that some arguments for eating animals tend to be subject to motivated reasoning due to the convenience and deliciousness of eating them? What percent of these arguments would you say are colored by this phenomenon?
I know some of the questions I asked might be slightly provocative, but I was very impressed at how deeply you have thought about these questions. Very few other people consider their practices to that degree. I hope you can keep pushing me and the rest of the EA community to think deeply about these questions.
Thanks so much,
Will