My Blog

Categoría: Speculative Sentience

  • What are the different types of elements that constitute reality in its most essential aspect?

    «If we want to develop a sentience simulation project, that admits as many hypotheses and theories about sentience as possible, we will find that obviously in such an environment it will not be enough to represent the sentience alone, but surely we will have to include other types of substances that may be related to it. To give a very simple example, if we consider that sentience emerges from a wet biological animal material brain, and we want to represent a living frog that feels in our system, the simulation environment must support the representation, in one way or another, of at least two types of objects or concepts: material objects (such as the frog’s brain or whole body and the physical environment where it lives) and sentient objects (such as the frog’s experiences).

    Because of this, when simulating sentience, elements that are not purely sentience should generally also be simulated; and if we want to have an environment that admits all possible hypotheses and theories about sentience, then to be very sure of leaving nothing out, it would be very interesting to be able to include as types of simulation objects all kinds of possible components of reality according to all kinds of paradigms, theories and beliefs.»

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  • God or consciousness?

    A quote from Max Planck:

    “All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.”

    https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1328821-all-matter-originates-and-exists-only-by-virtue-of-a

    What is Max Planck talking about? Consciousness? Sentience? Panpsychism? God?

  • Opportunities for an astronomical reduction of suffering

    This is a list of situations, projects or initiatives in which there could be an “astronomical” (huge) reduction in the amount of suffering compared to what currently exists or is expected. Many of these situations (but not necessarily all of them) involve a high risk in the sense that they are difficult projects whose probability of success is very low. In some cases, this may happen because they are projects that assume as certain some hypotheses for which there is little evidence, so we can consider them unlikely, although not impossible.

    I insist that the only criterion to appear on this list is that the project or idea supposes an astronomical reduction of the suffering that we believe exists or will exist. The list can include both remote possibilities and speculative approaches as well as conventional and highly probable scenarios.

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  • Types of suffering based on their uncertainty

    The following is a list of types of suffering organized according to their uncertainty.

    1. Suffering well reported.

    In this case, the suffering being is typically an adult human who survives to the negative experience and can describe it.

    • Large burned; suffering by fires, plane crashes, explosions, bombings… (suffering by hot)
    • Individuals suffering cold and freezing.
    • Experimentation with human beings.
    • Partial drowning.
    • Physical torture.
    • Psychological torture.
    • Rape in adults.
    • Irukandji jellyfish sting.
    • Cluster headache.
    • Trigeminal neuralgia.
    • Conscious agony without palliative care (cancer, degenerative diseases…)
    • Heart attacks and cardiovascular accidents.
    • Depression.
    • Psychological suffering due to the loss of a loved one.
    • Psychological suffering of abandonment and separation type (emotional break in couples or between parents and children)
    • Psychological suffering due to feeling guilty for having caused or not having been able to avoid the damage to a loved one.
    • Another psychological suffering.
    • Birth pain.

    2. Suffering difficult to survey.

    It is the case of suffering in non-human animals, very young humans, humans in oppressive situations, humans with some cognitive impairment, and humans who do not survive the experience of suffering, or for any other reason they cannot communicate it.

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  • A quick summary on Sentient Platonism

    Sentience Platonism is the idea that experiences exist by themselves, regardless of the sentient beings who experience them. How is that possible? Our minds could be like radio receivers capable of connecting some “station”. The mind, as the radio-receiver, does not generate anything new, but connects to something that preexists.

    Is it compatible with emergentism? No, it’s just the opposite. The “radio receivers” metaphor is a type of immersionism (the symmetrical hypothesis of emergentism). Is it compatible with the simulation hypothesis? Yes. Sentience Platonism can be reinforced by the idea that perhaps we live in a simulation and beings may be “instantiated” from an ideal object, in the same way as “instances” of software objects in “Object-Oriented Programming“.

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  • Implications of a plausible Sentience Platonism in the prevention of suffering

    Even if the probability of Sentience Platonism were extremely small, while there is a higher than zero probability, and considering that is not very clear where sentience comes from, we might think twice before disregarding this idea, because should it be true, its implications for preventing suffering would be immense.

    In Sentience Platonism we can consider at least three possibilities. In all three cases I am going to talk about a platonic experience that generates in some way several conventional experiences and I will analyze, assuming that this hypothesis was true, what would be its consequences in terms of relief and prevention of suffering.

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  • The metaphysics of the end of suffering

    Things do not fall down, but are attracted to the center of planet Earth, this being a model that can be complicated including other celestial bodies. The difference is not important at the local level, but it is fundamental to understand it if our plan includes escaping from the planet. In the same way, knowing what sentience really is (Open Individualism, Empty Individualism) does not seem very important if this in practice manifests itself in other ways (Closed Individualism), but in a project that pretends to escape from all suffering it is absolutely essential. Of course, this may sound as far-fetched and ambitious as escaping the gravity of planet Earth. A few centuries ago no one in his right mind would have proposed something like that, or if he had, he would have been ridiculed as a pretentious madman.

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  • Consciousness and the binding-problem

    While panpsychism sounds crazy, it is actually a highly viable theory of consciousness, as long as it is distinguished from animism: the view that everything is alive and therefore possesses agency, intentionality, thoughts, emotions, etc. Elementary particles almost certainly are not endowed any of these attributes, but according to (my take on) panpsychism, they have a very fundamental kind of consciousness, perhaps something akin to the feeling of presence or “being there.” —Kenneth Shinozuka

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  • Simulating philosophical hypotheses about sentience

    Simulations can be used to understand and evaluate the different theories and metaphysical hypotheses in relation to sentience. We can use simulations as educational tools to better understanding of the different hypotheses, theories, paradigms and worldviews on sentience, as well as their implications, providing clarity in the debate about the details and alternatives within each of the theories. Also, simulations can help in the search of good arguments to assess the plausibility of the different theories, so that we can have better criteria to allocate more or less resources to investigate or take into account one or the other within a plan to reduce future suffering.

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  • Empty, Open and Closed Individualism

    …it is common to access some memory of adolescence and to be ashamed of oneself, of what we did or even of what we thought at that moment. It seems as if someone else has done it. It can become humiliating or almost inconceivable that we would have been able to think or do such a thing. But this is explained simply if we accept that we are precisely talking about another person: my “I of the past”. Every millisecond (or minimum unit of time) we are a different person. This is called Empty Individualism.

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