…for what it's worth

What follows is a short paper I wrote for Introduction to Cognitive Science. It is mostly a reflection on a short story we read for that class which I was able to find online here. You will have to read it to understand what I’m talking about. We were allowed to write about anything, and I wrote on this particular topic to make my readers feel the horror of the prevailing philosophical worldview of our day: that non-deterministic consciousness leading to moral capacity is an illusion.

In the supplementary reading The Seventh Sally or How Trurl’s Own Perfection Led to No Good, by Stanisław Lem, Lem creates a world apparently much like our own, but with a uniquely skilled individual named Trurl. Trurl possesses a powerful ability to create, and he uses this ability to create a perfect model of a civilization. The inhabitants of this model are described in detail as being exactly like the inhabitants of real civilizations: they love, they hate, they are traitors and heroes and conspirators and ordinary folk, and are purportedly fully human to Trurl, except that they are very small, and understood by him. The apparent moral dilemma, which comprises the main thrust of the story, comes when Trurl tells his friend Klapaucious what he has done, and Klapaucious explains that there is no difference between a perfect simulation of people and the real thing.

What surprised me is that Trurl then rushes to their aid. This behavior seems completely inappropriate given his new understanding of the nature of consciousness. I contend that if he has truly created a whole civilization of beings capable of the same feelings of which he is capable, he has no moral obligation to them at all. In fact, I would go so far as to contend that in such a case, neither moral obligation nor morals themselves exist.

In support of this, consider the fact that purely deterministic matter and energy cannot (by the definition of determinism), be arranged into a being with free, non-deterministic feelings. If Trurl, in his extravagant act, truly created beings sufficiently like himself emotionally for him to be convinced that they feel suffering just like he does, he would have shown that his own suffering was just as illusory as theirs, not the other way around.

Further, consider the fact that for Trurl to create his artificial civilization, he must understand how it works (and in fact, his dialog with Klapaucious suggests this). This implies at least some level of understanding about the way his own mind works (remember, Trurl was able to say that his creations truly felt), or in other words, he effectively knew the general algorithm for his own consciousness. Trurl thus knew he was a machine without freedom, bound in slavery to the algorithm of his consciousness.

The fatal assumption seems to be that humans are moral agents, which at least in the story is contradicted by the evidence. The story says that since humans are moral agents, anything that thinks and feels as we do must also be a moral agent, and may induce in other moral agents moral obligations. If the facts of the story are taken at face-value, however, without this ungrounded assumption, we must reach a different conclusion: If we can demonstrate that there are beings following merely deterministic principles (and are thus amoral agents), and that those beings nonetheless think and feel just as we humans do, then in all probability, humans are not moral agents either.

This is more or less the theme for my blog: get it out of my head and on the “page”, and maybe more thoughts will fill its empty place.

My Catharsis, by Dan Bull

I'll get in my submarine
Set sail to somewhere remote
I'll wait until World War III is over
Then go and live with the victors and

Sing
Sing
My catharsis

Look, never again will I put down my pen
The best method I know to let stuff out my head
Yes, I'm aware of the notion I must sound a bit dense
But I'm just letting you know there's nothing round to contend
When stressed then I focus on jotting down a lament
Introspectively composing what comes out from within
Whenever you feel hopeless, down, depressed
I suggest getting a note book out and venting
Whether wrecked or sober muck round with the text
Get depression focused, confront the doubt and dread
Instead of letting them roam or shutting them out your head
Don't ever repress emotions, push them down, pretending
You never noticed them sucking you down to death
You could suffer a thousand deaths together alone
Getting ever more low 'til you couldn't get up out of bed
So yes, my best weapon's prose, and I'll love sound to def

My catharsis

Sometimes you need to sit and vent your heart
Even if there's a fair chance some prick'll tear it apart
But I don't care, it's a farce
So I'm wearing my heart on my sleeve eager to share it with half
Of the people that care when I start with my speech
Harp through my teeth
About seemingly meaningless things mithering me
And I mean it's difficult to say what's really on your brain
Without thinking what friends think of your frame of mind
cos they might think you're a little bit insane
But if you wanna break from the cycle of pain
Then you might wanna change up your mind and its frame
You're neither to blame nor liable for saying
Any lines on a page that's inscribed with your name
They're right when they say pen's mightier than sword
So remember that fact then write and record

My catharsis