Hey, did y’all consider the possibility of a conscious being’s experiences being influenced by:
the experiences of other conscious beings
The decisions of other conscious beings
Things in a very different space than the one said being is in
Other dimensions? (For the sake of the hypothetical, imagine there’s some particle in front of you. It’s special in that it doesn’t interact with any any other types of particles. Therefore, you think that such particles are, for all practical purposes, from a different definition.
And have we thought about if a conscious person can use their free will to alter those thing?
If someone is both experiencing and deciding on matters from a different dimension, can’t it be argued that they are sort of living in multiple dimensions?
Thanks for sharing, I am looking forward to the series!
To make this tractable, we made four assumptions: utilitarianism, hedonism, valence symmetry, and unitarianism.
I am glad you made these assumptions! They seem the most reasonable and action-guiding.
So, let’s assume symmetry. We’ll say that the relevant best animal welfare states are the average welfare levels of the average animal-(of a given species)-in-full-health. If we represent that welfare state with some arbitrary positive number, then the “worst” welfare state is represented by its negation.
I have estimated here the welfare of broilers in a conventional scenario is 2.21 times as bad as their full health is good, and the welfare of hens in conventional cages is 2.19 times as bad as their full health is good. These estimates are pretty close to 1 given the high uncertainty, but I am curious about whether you will elaborate on the symmetry assumption in the series.
Thanks for your comment, Vasco! We don't discuss the symmetry assumption in other posts. Our only discussion is in the supplementary report that's linked above, which is focused on axiological asymmetries (where the theory of welfare itself posits a fundamental asymmetry), not contingent asymmetries (where contingent physiological facts about organisms explain the asymmetry). But to be clear: we aren't attached to the symmetry assumption and agree that it's controversial. We make it purely to simplify the project, as it makes it much easier to define a lower welfare bound (negating the number that represents full health) and, for that reason, makes cross-species comparisons more straightforward. That being said, we've built a BOTEC for doing cost-effectiveness analyses with welfare ranges (not yet released), and that tool allows you to factor in different welfare range "skews" (i.e., the appropriate asymmetry for a species). We're also interested in doing more work on asymmetry in the future. So I agree with you about the importance of the issue!
Just to clarify: In this text, are "welfare" and "utility" referring to same concept, or are they just proportional to each other because of the unitarianist assumption?
Good question, Jobst. Given the project assumptions, I was using them as synonyms. Of course, many people have perfectly good reasons for using "utility" in a broader way.
https://youtu.be/wfYbgdo8e-8 a being can have multiple conciousnesses, on average.
We wrote about that possibility here and here.
Thanks!
Hey, did y’all consider the possibility of a conscious being’s experiences being influenced by:
And have we thought about if a conscious person can use their free will to alter those thing?
If someone is both experiencing and deciding on matters from a different dimension, can’t it be argued that they are sort of living in multiple dimensions?
Thanks for posting this Bob. I thought the previous sequence was valuable, and am looking forward to this one.
Thanks, Ben! Hope it's helpful.
Thanks for sharing, I am looking forward to the series!
I am glad you made these assumptions! They seem the most reasonable and action-guiding.
I have estimated here the welfare of broilers in a conventional scenario is 2.21 times as bad as their full health is good, and the welfare of hens in conventional cages is 2.19 times as bad as their full health is good. These estimates are pretty close to 1 given the high uncertainty, but I am curious about whether you will elaborate on the symmetry assumption in the series.
Thanks for your comment, Vasco! We don't discuss the symmetry assumption in other posts. Our only discussion is in the supplementary report that's linked above, which is focused on axiological asymmetries (where the theory of welfare itself posits a fundamental asymmetry), not contingent asymmetries (where contingent physiological facts about organisms explain the asymmetry). But to be clear: we aren't attached to the symmetry assumption and agree that it's controversial. We make it purely to simplify the project, as it makes it much easier to define a lower welfare bound (negating the number that represents full health) and, for that reason, makes cross-species comparisons more straightforward. That being said, we've built a BOTEC for doing cost-effectiveness analyses with welfare ranges (not yet released), and that tool allows you to factor in different welfare range "skews" (i.e., the appropriate asymmetry for a species). We're also interested in doing more work on asymmetry in the future. So I agree with you about the importance of the issue!
Just to clarify: In this text, are "welfare" and "utility" referring to same concept, or are they just proportional to each other because of the unitarianist assumption?
Good question, Jobst. Given the project assumptions, I was using them as synonyms. Of course, many people have perfectly good reasons for using "utility" in a broader way.