Thread: Dream and Fantasy Morals

Originally Posted by Sageous

^^ I couldn't have said it better myself...

Mzungi, I don't believe you can list a long "wiki" definition of sentience (which surprisingly is a fairly decent definition, even though it omitted sentience's key aspect of self-awareness) and then pick out a couple of words from it and decide that is what sentience means. Yes, sentient beings have the perhaps unique ability to understand their pain, but that understanding is a product of sentience, and not its reason for being. Sentience involves a whole lot of other things, and non-sentient beings are more than able to feel pain, even if they do cannot metaphysically grasp what they are feeling. So I guess DC's could potentially feel pain without being sentient, even if they cannot comprehend their suffering.

And yes: why couldn't DC's simply be excellent unconscious constructs that are "putting on a convincing show" of sentience? That doesn't seem too farfetched, given the creative capacities of our dreaming minds, and our conscious expectations of how DC's ought to behave.

Feeling, perception and subjectivity are all summed up in the ability to suffer, that's why I said that the ability to suffer was the primary meaning of sentience. First, obviously, you need to be able to feel. Then, of course, you need to be able to perceive your sensory information, which is pain or the lack of pain. Then you must experience yourself subjectively... this is your pain, not somebody else's, and maybe by running away from the bee hive you can cause that pain to stop. You are confusing sentience with intelligence. Non-human animals have sentience because they can feel, perceive and experience subjectively. They cannot, however, reason (except maybe dolphins) which is why eighteen century philosophers made a distinction between sentience and reason. Humans, therefore, have the ability to suffer in more intense ways than non-human animals, mainly because of our ability to expect pain before it comes and also our experience of emotional pain. But the requirements of sentience is met in non-human animals as much as in humans, and saying that sentience involves a perception of human consciousness is really being too loose with the word.

And you could say that any human's exhibition of intelligence is just "putting on a convincing show" as is any human's exhibition of pain. We can't really be sure that other humans are intelligent, or that they really do feel pain when we stab them in the arm with a needle. However enough humans have experience of pain that we have agreed that pain is a thing experienced by all humans, and therefore even though we can never measure pain, or intelligence for that matter, subjectively, we treat it objectively as something possessed by all humans. I don't see how DCs are any different.

DCs may not be sentient independent of us, but we are sentient and we create the DCs. I think that DCs may have some semblance of sentience through us, because they are not separate from us. They are built from our experiences, our thoughts, and our expectations, the same as everything is both inside and outside of our dreams. However, there isn’t the element of external reality tied into our dreams like it is in waking life. I think that interacting with DCs is interacting with ourselves, whether we are conscious of that or not. So there is no real moral dilemma as to whether we harm other people in our dreams, but I do think that we can still harm ourselves, even if only psychologically or spiritually.

I agree with pretty much everything you said, dreamer.

but I do think that we can still harm ourselves, even if only psychologically or spiritually.

Except for this bit. I see the DCs as mere projections (thank you, Inception) of our mind and not the thing itself. Because of this, the potential for harm to ourselves is pretty insigificant, comparable to viewing violent media. If you're close to the deep end already, maybe it'll push you over the edge, but for most of us, I don't think we're going to be any worse for wear, regardless of what we do, morally or otherwise.

"sentience is necessary for the ability to suffer" quoted from the wiki. This sentence would seem to imply that sentience precedes pain, but pain is not the entirety of sentience and it seems incredibly limiting to make the definition of one of the most complex concepts so seemingly simple.

They cannot, however, reason (except maybe dolphins) which is why eighteen century philosophers made a distinction between sentience and reason.

Can they not? How do you know?

Looking at the wiki definition, reason consists of "consciously making sense of things, applying logic, establishing and verifying facts, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information." Well, I'd argue that animals can consciously make sense of the world (even if it is as rudimentary as "This is dangerous. Better avoid this"), apply logic ("This hurt me once. It'll probably hurt me again, if I touch it") and change beliefs ("owner chased me away, maybe peeing in the corner wasn't quite a clever idea" or, for a darker example, "Owner hurt me. Maybe he's not really benevolent"). Establishing and verifying facts is a bit trickier to prove, but they may do so in a different way to us. I'd argue animals can experience emotional pain (elephants will always pay respects and hold their version of funerals for fallen friends and relatives) and they can expect pain. Its a horrible example, but if you whip a creature often, it'll begin to work out what's coming when you raise it again.

Either way they are sentient. Therefore, should we not treat them as you propose we treat DCs? No more killing for meat etc.

And you could say that any human's exhibition of intelligence is just "putting on a convincing show" as is any human's exhibition of pain. We can't really be sure that other humans are intelligent, or that they really do feel pain when we stab them in the arm with a needle.

Absolutely. The only difference is that, illusion or not, other humans seem to have a brain that offers an explanation of how they may be able to be sentient. Doesn't prove it, but they've got a better argument than DCs.

I don't see how DCs are any different.

Not all DCs look or even act like humans, for starters. Even if they do posses some measure of sentience, so what? There's no guarantee that they're intelligant and they're degree of sentience may be sub-insect, for all we know. Treat them as well as you would humans if you wish, but I feel you should elevate all creatures to the same level.

The same holds true for DCs.

Does it, though? Even if they possess egos, because of the often nonsensical nature of the dream world, its unlikely its anything resembling our own egos. We can reasonably assume that other humans have egos like ourselves because, through observing them, we can see that they see the world in a similar fashion (broadly speaking, anyways). Even if we don't agree, we can often understand the other's point of view and sometimes see how they got to that conclusion. As you said, they exhibit similarities with us. What similarities do we share with DCs? Their version of intelligence and logic are often so dissimilar to our own, that a Lovecraft creation has more in common with us. At least with other humans, we have some common frame of reference. That's not to say we treat them immorally because of their differences, but when weighing up whether something has consciousness, those more similar to you have a more convincing argument.

Just because they are in some mysterious sense us, why should they deserve any less moral consideration if they can suffer, and have preferences not to suffer?

Depends on how you see morality. My view has always been whether it causes suffering to others. Self-inflicted suffering, while not a good idea, seems morally neutral. You're not intruding on anyone if the only one who can suffer is yourself. So, if DCs are literally ourselves and we see no downsides in waking life from doing as we wish with them, then, not only is morality inapplicable to it, but whether its sensible is hardly relevent. If you chop off your arm, you haven't committed an evil act. If you then set fire to your severed arm, you're still not evil. I don't see how a fragmented mental state is any different to a physical state.

our mind creates everything by which we experience both worlds.

Which is why you can never be sure whether your sense of morality truly works in any world. My mind perceives the dream world as being as real as fiction. Therefore, I treat it as such. We both see the real world as real, therefore, we treat it as such. Whether its wrong or right can never be proven, and, so, you're left with preference.

It's the difference between an enclosed environment in a single-player RPG and a persistent world in an MMORPG.

Which just illustrates my point. Except when caught in the narrative and deliberately made to feel, no one cares about NPCs, whether they're enemies or not. Countless goombas have been killed, but we don't call video games players immoral. MMOs are not unreal in moral terms, but simply less real than reality. In that, immoral actions in an MMO can have consequences (making a fellow plater upset), but they are less important (there's probably a better word for it), than reality. If I stab the real you, I'll rightly get labelled as evil. If I stab your avatar, I don't think anyone's going to throw that word around. With shared dreaming unproven, I suppose I see dreaming as a single player RPG. The only real person is me and even then, I'm using an avatar. If shared dreaming is proven and used regularly, I would consider abusing other people's DCs to be immoral, but not your own.