So I guess it's okay to raise pigs in horribly crowded environments and eat them, but not bring them back to a disembodied existence. Still, it's a step closer to envattment. If you're a pig, how do you know the farmer didn't sneak into your stall last night to hand you over to some mad scientists who removed your brain and hooked it up to some machine? — Marchesk

You are saying that we ought to stay consistent, and keep the disembodied existences of pigs also horribly crowded?

Maybe the vats should be placed very close to each other.

(BTW, I am not supporting the practice of keeping pigs in horribly crowded, unpig conditions, but I do support eating happy pigs that have been raised happy and were slaughtered in ways compatible with how a pig wants to exit.)

and were slaughtered in ways compatible with how a pig wants to exit. — god must be atheist

There's a way pigs wish to be slaughtered?

I'm all for happy pigs. Not sure what it is with horses and dogs getting the gold treatment, and pigs are cattle at best.

There's a way pigs wish to be slaughtered? — Marchesk

Think of involuntary euthanasia. Much like in humans: not being aware, or not precognizing, that you are about to be killed; and you are killed in a way that you don't notice. For instance, in deep sleep, or in a state of rapturous joy. Not any different from humans.

I'm all for happy pigs. Not sure what it is with horses and dogs getting the gold treatment, and pigs are cattle at best. — Marchesk

Pigs are the most misunderstood ones of the domesticated animals. They are better guard animals than dogs (and so are geese, by the way), and they have better olfactory senses. They are smarter than dogs, and they are not cute. That's the source of their detriment. Human beings are hopelessly shallow. Humans adore the cats, despite their TOTALLY unethical behaviour patterns (torture and rape smaller animals, and suck up to bigger, stronger animals). Hardly a cat saved a human being from a burning house, hardly a cat delivered evidence as witness of the court to save a man from the gallows pole. (Dogs have. At least in movies.)

Not to misconstrue that I don't like cats. I love cats. I am a human, after all. I am as shallow as the next person on the street.

Yeah, compare the treatment of cats to raccoons. Raccoons are evil and should be shot, but god forbid if someone mentions killing off the stray cats because they're having a negative effect on the native bird population.

I think they were being overly optimistic that consciousness would likely occur simply by stimulating some neurons in a very different environment.

I think they were being overly optimistic that consciousness would likely occur simply by stimulating some neurons in a very different environment. — Terrapin Station

As scientists, yes. As an individual, to whom this may happen, I think I am being overly pessimistic, and full of fear, that consciousness would occur simply by stimulating some neurons in a very different environment

think they were being overly optimistic that consciousness would likely occur simply by stimulating some neurons in a very different environment. — Terrapin Station

We really don't know, but it's quite possible you could end up with a nightmarish, insane experience on the part of the subject. Maybe the brain experiences intense pain with all the signals from the body missing. Or maybe intense fear and confusion. Likely there would be crazy hallucinations if the subject did regain consciousness. Perhaps intense seizures would occur.

Or it could just be fragmentary stuff. We don't know how a brain functions absent a body if it's kept alive.

Or the birds. We don't mind eating chicken and turkey, but god forbid that we condone cats eating them wild birds.

In fact, people wanted to do something about birds flying into tall skyscaper windows, and thus committing inadvertent suicide. They estimate a that in North America one to seven million migrating bird individuals die this death each year.

While my complete sympathy for the birds, the bird-huggers forget that nature is more than capable and is doing the job of replacing the birds going missing in flight tours. Nature abhors a vacuum (so to speak). Each species is producing much more offspring then their or the entire environment can support. Most of the new hatchlings, and litters and newborns, etc. don't survive to age of maturity. In nature.

Humans are the sole exception. If flies, pigeons, rabbits, rats, or cats had the survival rate of humans from birth, then the earth woudl be covered with a layer of seven miles thick flies, or cats, or what have you. It is a miracle and a blessing that it's humans with our sense of sexual taboos that we got to the top of the food chain. We are destroying the planet, too, no question about it, by overpopulating it, but much slower than cats or owls or mosquitoes would do if they had our birth-to-adult survival rate.

A recent study found that the neurons in 32 pig brains removed from thier bodies can be temporarily brought back to life four hours later when hooked up to a machine that pumps oxygen, nutrients and protective chemicals into their brains. The cells were able to take in oxygen and produce CO2, but that's it for now. — Marchesk

Just think of the possibilities! If this lead to cell regeneration, then maybe one day we could recycle pigs to slaughter and eat over and over again.

Just think of the possibilities! If this lead to cell regeneration, then maybe one day we could recycle pigs to slaughter and eat over and over again. — S

Oh god! That gives me an idea for a horror story where aliens with a taste for human flesh recycle our brains into cloned bodies over and over.

Just think of the possibilities! If this lead to cell regeneration, then maybe one day we could recycle pigs to slaughter and eat over and over again. — S

this is funny in a scary and morbid sort of way.

While my complete sympathy for the birds, the bird-huggers forget that nature is more than capable and is doing the job of replacing the birds going missing in flight tours. — god must be atheist

Nature adapts, which means the generalist species that do well alongside humans and can live in a range of climates have the advantage and are likely to fill the niches leftover from the specialists who can't adapt in the future.

This is funny in a scary and morbid sort of way. — god must be atheist

Yeah, that's kind of my thing.

So I guess it's okay to raise pigs in horribly crowded environments and eat them, but not bring them back to a disembodied existence. Still, it's a step closer to envattment. If you're a pig, how do you know the farmer didn't sneak into your stall last night to hand you over to some mad scientists who removed your brain and hooked it up to some machine? — Marchesk

And how does the farmer know that some alien didn't sneaked into his farm and kidnap his brain to use as a battery?

In other words, this line of thinking just brings about an infinite regress of worlds where some conscious entity is unaware of the world as it is. How do the aliens or mad scientist not know whether their own experiences aren't themselves based on their brains being in a vat?

It's vats all the way down.

But yes, that's the skeptical worry. Nick Bostrom wrote that realism would be a casualty of future tech when simulations are indistinguishable from the inside. And then of course he also argued that we're likely inside an ancestor simulation.

Did you ever watch the movies eXistenZ or the Thirteenth Floor? They had multiple levels of simulation. eXistenZ ends with the main characters and the audience being unsure of whether they were in base reality or still inside a game. Same with Inception, but that was a dream skepticism scenario instead of a simulation.

And there's the Star Trek episode where the crew turns the table on the sentient Holodeck character Moriarty, transporting him to a cube that would simulate a lifetime of adventure off the holodeck, tricking Moriarty into thinking he had escaped into the real world. And then Picard raises the possibility that universe itself might be a simulation.

We're left either conceding these worries have some merit (non-zero probability of being true), or denying the possibility of such scenarios. I think denial is a really strong claim since nobody has the knowledge to say whether it's impossible to envatt or simulate to that degree.

Would it make sense to continue to call them "simulations"? If we found out that Big Bangs are really the start of a new simulation, and that is the natural way all universes begin, with no beginning and no end, then that would be "reality", not "simulations".

This also raises the question of whether or not the simulations that we create in our computers are real universes where the NPCs are really conscious themselves.

Ah--I just realized that I misread the first post. I thought you were saying that they removed neurons from the brains and that's what they were experimenting on. I just realized that you're saying they experimented on intact brains. I agree that there's far more probability in that situation of some sort of mental activity.

If we found out that Big Bangs are really the start of a new simulation, and that is the natural way all universes begin, with no beginning and no end, then that would be "reality", not "simulations". — Harry Hindu

That's true. But what if the big bangs generated Boltzman brains?

This also raises the question of whether or not the simulations that we create in our computers are real universes where the NPCs are really conscious themselves. — Harry Hindu

Right, that would be a way to rule out being inside a simulation. But it's a question we can't answer with any confidence.

If you're a pig, how do you know the farmer didn't sneak into your stall last night to hand you over to some mad scientists who removed your brain and hooked it up to some machine? — Marchesk

The pig would know because they are not up to their ham hocks in pig shit.

They are smarter than dogs, and they are not cute. — god must be atheist

What do you mean, "not cute"? Have you held a recently new born piglet? Warm, dry, pink, tiny little pig-snout, soft hair: very cute. Granted, an old sow that has been wallowing in the mire all days is not cute. Adult swine fangs are quite dangerous.

Oh god! That gives me an idea for a horror story where aliens with a taste for human flesh recycle our brains into cloned bodies over and over. — Marchesk

I'm sorry, but I don't see why brains would need to be recycled into cloned bodies over and over. It is more likely that the preferred parts will be grown in tanks. That might be brains; we don't eat them any more, but veal brains, for instance, were recently considered fine food (till mad cow disease ruined it for everybody). So, maybe 'baby brains'...

Why do they call it 'pre-menstrual syndrome'?

Because 'mad cow' was already taken.

They (pigs) are smarter than dogs, and they are not cute. — god must be atheist

Pigs can be quite cute. Just look at my merry friends over here:

Those are adorable!! I would so much like to make mad and passionate love to them!

Those are adorable!! — god must be atheist

With this I agree.

I would so much like to make mad and passionate love to them! — god must be atheist

This is somewhat wallowsome...