I suspect you would prefer averting A for any value of N (equal to 1 or higher) in principle, but that you believe N cannot take a high value in practice.

I understand I got this right. So, if N could be 1 M, I think you would prefer averting i) 1 year of pain of intensity level 1 M with probability 10^-100 over ii) 10^100 years of pain of intensity level 999,999 with probability 1.

While mathematical models can theoretically increase N to infinity, the subjective reality of suffering is biologically capped because there is a physiological ceiling of the nervous system. 

N is supposed to be the number of different pain intensities. One cannot determine the maximum pain intensity M based on N alone. In theory, N can be arbitrarily large for any M. The mean difference Delta = M/N between consecutive pain intensity levels would just tend to 0 as N increases to infinity. For a constant difference between the pain intensity of consecutive intensity levels, the pain intensity of level i would be Delta*i.

The premise of "99.99999999% of X" assumes that pain exists on a perfectly smooth, linear scale that can be infinitely divided.

I agree pain intensities cannot be arbitrarily close. However, consider N = 100. Would you prefer averting, for example, i) 0.1 s of pain of intensity level 100 with probability 10^-100 over ii) 10^100 years of pain of intensity level 99 with probability 1. The expected pain of ii) is 3.12*10^208 (= 10^100*99*1/(0.1/60^2/24/365.25*100*10^-100)) times that of i).

It also seems something worth tracking to me.

Thanks for the post, Lauren. Here is a discussion about the post.

Here is Lauren's post about this.

Thanks for elaborating. Imagine pain has N levels of intensity (with N equal to 1 or higher). Consider the following pains:

• A. Duration of 1 year, intensity level N (the highest), and probability of 10^-100.
• B. Duration of 10^100 years, intensity level N - 1 (the 2nd highest), and probability of 1.

The expected pain of B is 10^100*(N - 1)*1/(1*N*10^-100) = 10^200*(1 - 1/N) times that of A. I would prefer averting B for N equal to 2 or higher. Even for N = 2, the expected pain of B is 5*10^199 times that of A.

For which values of N (if any) would you prefer averting B over A? I understand you would prefer averting A at least for N = 5. I suspect you would prefer averting A for any value of N (equal to 1 or higher) in principle, but that you believe N cannot take a high value in practice. If so, why?

Hi David. I would be curious to know your thoughts on my reply to titotal. In the post, "more pain" is supposed to mean "more pain, and all else equal". If the event that leads to additional pain comes with benefits, it could overall increase welfare. In contrast, a "speck of dust in the eye" is supposed to represent something which decreases welfare very little (considering all effects).

That said, our confidence in our own position is not high. So, we’d be willing to fund things to challenge our own views: If we had sufficient funding from folks interested in the question, Arthropoda would fund a grant round specifically on soil invertebrate sentience and relevant natural history studies (especially in ways that attempt to capture the likely enormous range of differences between species in this group). Currently, much of our grant-making funds are restricted (at least informally) to farmed insects and shrimp, so it’s not an option.

Mal and Bob, what would you fund with 50 k$ of unrestricted funding under expectational total hedonistic utilitarianism? How about under your own moral views? Why? I understand you are open to funding research on soil animals, but I wonder whether you would prefer funding more research on farmed invertebrates.

what do you think about the questions I asked here?

Elif replied.

Got it. Consider these 2 pains:

• A. Duration of 1 s, intensity of X, and probability of 10^-100.
• B. Duration of 10^100 years, intensity of 99.99999999 % of X, and probability of 1.

Would you prefer averting A over B? In other words, would you prefer A) an infinitesimal chance of decreasing 1 s of very intense pain over B) certainly decreasing 10^100 years of an infinitesimaly less intense pain?

Thanks for the thoughts, Elif.

I agree annoying and excruciating pain have very different properties. However, it does not follow that an arbitrarily short time in excruciating pain is much worse than an arbitrarily long time in annoying pain? Liquid water and ice have different properties, but, for example, their mass and temperature can still be quantitatively compared. I do not think analogies with physics illustrate that some pain intensities cannot be quantitatively compared.

Would you prefer 10 years in annoying pain over a probability of 10^-100 of 0.1 s in excruciating pain? If so, what do you think about the questions I asked here?