<DIV>Hi Lee,</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I completely understand why this viewpoint seems "nuts" to you. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I'll just restate it this way:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I would consider it a greater *objective* tragedy if a million people died, than if a single person died. I place a very high value on a single life as well as the collection of all lives, such that if a single person is murdered or tortured or made to suffer, I find that completely unacceptable - probably as equally unacceptable as if the same thing happened to a million people. Does that make any more sense?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>You offer up some challenging questions Lee :-) I'll do my best to answer.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>1) I'm very sorry to you and the world but unless that randomly selected </DIV> <DIV> human willfully agrees to such a thing, I cannot endorse it. If I
were that </DIV> <DIV> randomly selected person, I would think very hard about it, but in the end I </DIV> <DIV> would probably volunteer as long as I was allowed to perish and didn't have to </DIV> <DIV> suffer indefinitely.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>2) As long as the clinical trial patients agree to taking that risk, then sure, go for it. </DIV> <DIV> The current system of human clinical trials isn't too different from this - they </DIV> <DIV> volunteer though of course.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Best Wishes,</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Jeffrey Herrlich <BR><BR><B><I>Lee Corbin <lcorbin@tsoft.com></I></B> wrote:</DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px;
BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">In the post of May 25, 1:02 PM Jeffrey makes quite a number<BR>of points that I agree with. I'm skipping those :-)<BR>and going straight to the most interesting (i.e.<BR>controversial and provocative!)<BR><BR>> Lee:<BR>> > "As an analogy, suppose that all laws<BR>> > against the mistreatment of animals were repealed tomorrow;<BR>> > would millions of people in Western nations immediately rush<BR>> > to the kennels and animal shelters to procure victims for<BR>> > torture?"<BR><BR>Jeffrey responds<BR><BR>> No, I don't think that millions would. But I'm confident that<BR>> some would.<BR><BR>And I infer from what comes next that this is just as big a crime<BR>to you as if *many* did.<BR><BR>> I'm going to propose what is perhaps a strange philosophical <BR>> viewpoint that I happen to hold (and it's difficult for me to <BR>> convey). Consider that today, the entire universe and all the <BR>>
good and bad things that it includes can only be separately <BR>> represented in each of our separate minds.<BR><BR>Of course, this means with a *great* loss of detail. For<BR>example, I hold Russia and its millions in my mind, and I<BR>can even rattle off a great number of cities in that far-<BR>away land. But naturally, there is *some* loss of fidelity :-)<BR>For example, it would be *vastly* preferable if my mental<BR>model of Russia were to come to some harm, i.e., I imagine<BR>Russia being totally destroyed by a large meteorite, than<BR>it would be for the actual high-fidelity real version to<BR>undergo catastrophe.<BR><BR>> Each of us has only one mind and one reality to experience.<BR>> In other words, the value I place on the whole of humanity<BR>> (which is high) is restricted to my mind and my mind alone.<BR><BR>You're right. This is a strange philosophical viewpoint!<BR><BR>> So when viewed in this way, a *single* human life (real or<BR>>
simulated) is equally valuable as the sum of *all* human<BR>> lives put together.<BR><BR>Isn't that rather, ahem, nuts? Sorry, but how in the world<BR>can you *not* regret the loss of millions about a million times<BR>more than you regret the loss of one? I don't believe it.<BR>I don't really think that you suppose Mao's "Great Leap Forward"<BR>to have been only as harmful as the death of a single pedestrian<BR>in Canton last year.<BR><BR>> This is partially why I find it completely repulsive to<BR>> allow the torture or murder of even *one* conscious being,<BR>> regardless of whether they are "real" or "simulated".<BR><BR>We agree that "real" vs. "simulated" makes no difference. But<BR>just to get to the bottom of this, let me ask you a couple of<BR>questions:<BR><BR>(1) An alien shows up who has technology vastly, vastly <BR>beyond ours. He promises us that he will stop all poverty,<BR>and war, and traffic accidents, and cancer suffering and<BR>death, and all
other medical suffering and death, for a year,<BR>provided that at the end of a year we offer up to him a human<BR>sacrifice. The poor human (which we select at random from our<BR>6 billion, will be tortured by him to a very similar extent<BR>to which a cancer patient undergoes pain before his death.<BR><BR>Do you think that we should take him up on his offer?<BR><BR>(2) What if a new drug can be developed that will save many<BR>thousands of lives, but because radioactivity is involved,<BR>it is estimated that a few hundred random people around the<BR>world will die?<BR><BR>Think we should allow the development of this drug?<BR><BR>Best wishes,<BR>Lee<BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>extropy-chat mailing list<BR>extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org<BR>http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat<BR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><p>
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