On 5/27/07, Richard Loosemore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
What possible reason do we have for assuming that the "badness" of killing a creature is a linear, or even a monotonic, function of the intelligence/complexity/consciousness of that creature? You produced two data points on the graph, and two inequalities: B(Human) > B(Mouse) I/C/C(Human) > I/C/C(Mouse)
I thought two was enough to illustrate the argument, but if you really need more... let's do 6: Human, Chimpanzee, Goat, Mouse, Ant, Bacteria. I presume most people would rate the things in this list as going from most complex/intelligent/conscious to least? I also guess that most people would rate the killing of these living things as going from most bad to least bad? Obviously individual cases will vary, for example killing a person who is about to blow up a whole city of people is not going to be so bad. But, such external factors aside, there seems to be a general principle. If one accepts that there is, then the question becomes: Where should we put a super human intelligent machine on the list? If it's not at the top, then where is it and why? I don't claim to have answers to any of these questions, I'm just wondering what other people's thoughts are. Shane ----- 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=4007604&user_secret=7d7fb4d8