On 6/14/07, Matt Mahoney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I would avoid deleting all the files on my hard disk, but it has nothing to do with pain or empathy. Let us separate the questions of pain and ethics. There are two independent questions. 1. What mental or computational states correspond to pain? 2. When is it ethical to cause a state of pain?
There is a gradation: - pain as negative reinforcement - pain as an emotion - pain as a feeling When you ask if something "feels pain", then you don't ask if "pain" is adequate description of some aspect in that thing or person X, but whether X can be attributed as feeling. And this is related to the comlexity of X, and this complexity is related with ethics. ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=231415&user_secret=e9e40a7e
