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The value of sentience - Does Intelligence Have Any Value Apart From Sentience?
By: Clifford Greenblatt

Abstract:

Futurists place great emphasis on the technology of artificial intelligence as the key to a bright future. Computers can be very fast and efficient at solving large, complex problems that are far beyond the capability of any unaided human mind. However, the human mind has the property of sentience, which not even the most advanced computers of today have at all. Suppose human brains are eventually replaced with artificial minds that are much faster and far more efficient for development of futuristic technology. If sentience proves to be unessential or even detrimental for highly advanced intelligence, would sentience eventually be discarded as primitive and obsolete? On the other hand, is life at all meaningful without sentience?

This article demonstrates the need to distinguish sentience from intelligence and many other properties of the mind. The issue of whether sentience is natural or transcendent of nature is discussed. Some interesting, plausible, teleologies demonstrate logical consequences that could follow if sentience is a natural phenomenon. The value of sentience is contrasted with the value of intelligence, first through the dreaded concept of hell, and later through a gedanken value test. These demonstrate that sentience could have a radically great value that cannot be found in even the most advanced forms of intelligence.

Introduction:

Under normal circumstances, sentience and intelligence are integrated with each other within the framework of a person’s mind. In this article, sentience is examined in a form that is distilled from the integration to demonstrate that sentience could have a radically great value apart from intelligence, but intelligence has no value apart from sentience.

A rich example of sentience is found in the visual experience. Hardly a single impulse passes through the optic nerve without becoming intimate with the mind’s sentience. However, not many are deeply distressed about the demise of this rich sentient process at the end of a person’s life, because those who die are continually being replaced by young minds that continue the experience. Therefore, it is difficult to assign a value to sentience relative to intelligence on the basis of the visual experience, no matter how rich it may be. The subject of torment is one that many compassionate people prefer to avoid. Discussion about torment is often regarded to be in bad taste among polite company. However, the idea of torment is essential to this discussion of value relationships. The reader is therefore requested to endure with some discussion of such a distasteful concept.

Inside a Closed Box:

A highly powerful computer operating at full capacity inside a closed box with no means of external communication would be of no interest or relevance to a user. A user is interested in what information can be gained from the computer rather than how much the computer is doing internally. On the other hand, sentience trapped inside a closed box with no means of external communication would be highly relevant to beings outside of it. A patient who is incapable of any means of communication but is experiencing horrendous pain internally, would be the subject of great compassionate concern, even if the patient will never be able to communicate the experience to anyone.

Sentience and Hell:

To help distil the concept of sentience from the multitude of mental processes with which it is intimately associated, the concept of hell is introduced here. This is not being done to deliver a hellfire and brimstone sermon. Rather, it is introduced for the purpose of simplicity. Consider an antitheist who angrily proclaims, "I want no part of a god who would send people to hell!" Why would these antitheists regard the concept of hell with such hostility? I will consider some possibilities below.

1. Does this antitheist think the concept of hell is one in which a great deal of valuable intelligence is wasted? Then consider the energy wasted by the Sun. Only a tiny fraction of the power radiating from the Sun reaches the Earth. The great majority of solar power radiates into deep space, where there is no hope that it will ever be useful for supporting any living organisms. Energy conservation activists are anxious to prevent waste of the Earth’s energy resources. However, they show little interest in agitating for development of a cosmic energy conservation technology to capture all four-pi steradians [1] of radiation from the Sun before they become lost in deep space. Likewise, I do not think the antitheist would get emotional about intelligence being wasted in a world that he does not consider his own.

2. Could this antitheist be angry that fear of hell is being used to manipulate people into joining a system that deprives them of their ability to think rationally? The problem here is that the hope of heaven is much more often presented as an inducement for biblical faith than is fear of hell. It would then make more sense for the angry antitheist so say something like, "I want no part of a god who would send people to heaven!"

This is what I would consider to be closer to the reason that the antitheist would angrily declare, "I want no part of a god who would send people to hell!" Thinking about the concept of hell leads the antitheist to see a most powerful potential within his own sentience that deeply troubles him. Even this antitheist, who considers hell to be a disgusting myth, understands that the power of hell lies within his own sentience. The concept of hell applied to intelligence alone is absolutely impotent. There could be no hell without sentience.

Artificial Sentience:

Much research and development have been invested in artificial intelligence. Some assume that artificial intelligence will eventually become so advanced that computers will become sentient. However, it is essential not to confuse sentience with intelligence. Extremely advanced intelligence can exist without sentience, and sentience can exist with little or no intelligence.

Is Sentience Natural or Supernatural?:

Much progress has been made in understanding functional processes in the mind, but sentience remains a great mystery. I suspect that this is the mystery to which David Chalmers was referring in writing about the "explanatory gap (a term due to Levine 1983) between functions and experience." [2] A red light turns on in the mind of a skeptic when the idea of the supernatural is mentioned. For the purposes of this article, I will define a phenomenon as natural if it could ever be possible to explain by means of intelligence. I will define a phenomenon as supernatural if it is truly impossible to explain by means of intelligence. If sentience ever proves to be a natural phenomenon, then both interesting and frightful possibilities lie in the future for a technology of artificial sentience. Two extreme examples of such possibilities are a futuristic cosmic system of extreme pleasure (CSEP) and a futuristic cosmic system of extreme torment (CSET), as fancied below.

A Futuristic Cosmic System of Extreme Pleasure (CSEP):

Ancient Epicureans understood that an unbridled pursuit of pleasure brings poverty and misery. To reach their goal of maximising pleasure and minimising pain, they found it necessary to take an intelligent and moderated approach to happiness. Development of artificial sentience would give a futuristic system the ability to radically elevate the level of pleasure without moderation. In such a cosmic system of extreme pleasure (CSEP), a cosmic system of extremely advanced artificial intelligence would take full responsibility for developing and implementing all technology needed to support artificial sentience. Artificial sentient entities would be manufactured without any mechanisms that would limit the duration or intensity of the sentient experience of pleasure. Many in our time who are experiencing a moment of great pleasure may wish for the moment to last forever. However, an ecstatic experience must be followed by the necessity of doing whatever it takes to pay the bills and keep the house in order. Passionate relationships often turn cold, and some are abandoned or betrayed by the ones whom they loved. In the CSEP, the problems of practical necessities and spoiled passions could be eliminated by the design of its artificial sentience. Artificial intelligence would take care of all practical necessities, and artificial sentience would be free to enjoy uninterrupted pleasure of the greatest possible intensity. The pleasure would never be spoiled or diminished, because the artificial sentience, by design, would be free of all spoiling mechanisms.

The artificial sentient entities in the CSEP have no need for arms, legs, eyes, or ears. They have no need for language, memory, or reasoning ability. Their only purpose is to continually experience the greatest possible height of pleasure. These entities are little artificial brains that plug into an extremely efficient communal support system. Artificial intelligence manages all of the practical operations, economics, science, and technology to maintain the artificial sentient entities. Some in our time gain much pleasure from their work. However this level of pleasure is insufficient to support the fundamental purpose of the CSEP, which is to raise the total amount of pleasure in the universe to its absolute possible maximum. To permit the artificial sentience entities to experience any burden of practical responsibility would detract from their extreme level of pleasure. Therefore, the artificial sentient entities are designed to do absolutely nothing but continually experience the most extreme level of pleasure that a sentient entity can possibly experience.

In its pursuit of creating maximum possible pleasure, the artificial intelligence system of the CSEP would continually grow in cleverness, as it fully controls and maintains the environment for the artificial sentient entities. Our universe may have a limited life span, but the cleverest use of all available energy and matter could provide the greatest possible number of entity-hours of extreme pleasure before the universe dies. Propagating from star to star and from galaxy to galaxy, the CSEP could, over the course of many billions of years, envelop every star with orbiting colonies. Each star would have an astronomical number of these colonies, arranged in a vast number of noncoplanar orbital rings of differing radii. A four-pi steradian collection coverage around each star would collect nearly all the starlight for maintenance of sentient entities, rather than let it be radiated into deep space. The universe would turn dark from such a comprehensive absorption of starlight. Matter mined from planets and from cosmic dust would be used to manufacture artificial sentient entities, energy collectors, and supporting systems. The amount of matter required for four-pi steradian collection coverage around a star is quite astronomical. Perhaps, a radically advanced technology could be developed to mine matter directly from the stars and convert it, by means of extremely advanced particle colliders, to all the required elements. Massive replication of artificial sentient entities, energy collectors, and supporting systems would elevate the number of entity-hours of intense pleasure to a literally astronomic extreme over the life of the universe.

A Futuristic Cosmic System of Extreme Torment (CSET):

Friedrich Nietzsche regarded cruelty as strength and compassion as weakness. The Third Reich imposed severe cruelties on many of its captives who it considered to be from a condemned race. A futuristic cosmic system of extreme torment (CSET) could develop a technology of artificial sentience for the most dreadful and fearful of purposes. In such a society, artificial intelligence would be a cruel tyrant that creates artificial sentient entities for the purpose of maximising sentient torment in the universe. The power of sentience in the CSET would be vastly greater than the power of sentience in the CSEP, because extreme torment is a much stronger sentient experience than extreme pleasure. Like the CSEP, the CSET would propagate from star to star and from galaxy to galaxy to cover every star with orbiting colonies. These colonies would employ the most advanced possible technology to obtain the greatest possible number of sentient-entity-hours over the life of the universe. However, instead of making the artificial sentient entities experience the greatest possible pleasure, the CSET would design them to experience the most intense possible torment. For trillions of years, nearly every star in every galaxy could each be populated with billions of trillions of artificial sentient entities that would each continually experience the most intense torment that any sentient being could possibly experience.

Some Science Fiction:

Some science fiction will now be employed for illustration purposes. Some unrealistic circumstances will be presented without explanation. Although fictional, the story to follow should provide an effective means for testing a person’s value judgements.

The Universe of Nonsentience:

Here is the story about the Universe of Nonsentience. Nonsentience is inhabited by marvellously intelligent entities. Along with their amazing intelligence, they have a language that is so rich, efficient, and wide in bandwidth that they exchange complex ideas with each other at a thousand times the rate of human capability. These entities are brilliant scientists, artists, physicians, engineers, philosophers, educators, and administrators. Each works tirelessly and cheerfully for the good of all the inhabitants and for the beauty of their universe. Their science and technology are so advanced that they have propagated throughout their universe, making every place they inhabit a place of marvellous and dynamic beauty. Over several billion years, the Nonsentients have reached a population of 10^30 (a million-trillion-trillion) highly intelligent entities, distributed optimally throughout their universe. All inhabitants of Nonsentience express a high level of satisfaction with their work, with the beauty of their universe, and with the beauty of all of its intelligent entities.

There is one very strange thing about the universe of Nonsentience. Absolutely no one in that entire universe is sentient. The inhabitants are conscious in the sense that they are very much self-aware and are very much active in the use of their great intelligence. However, their self-awareness is strictly an intelligent self-awareness and not at all a sentient self-awareness. Their brains continually process an enormous amount of sensory data with the greatest of functionality, but there is no sentience intimate with any of their mental processes.

An impending event threatens to ruin the entire way of life in all of Nonsentience. Here is the nature of that threat. A universal drift in the fundamental physical constants of Nonsentience changes it from an environment that is optimal to one which is violent and hostile. All the beauty of their universe, which its inhabitants cultivated over billions of years, is transformed into an ugly nightmare. Disease and famine overtake the universe of Nonsentience, subjecting all 10^30 of its highly intelligent inhabitants to horrendous conditions. By stretching the power of their superior intelligence to its limits, they are able to keep their population functioning, but only under conditions of extreme and relentless hardship. The inhabitants cry out in pain and distress as they struggle desperately but futilely to remedy their horrific circumstances. However, their pain is not a sentient pain. Nonsentients have a rich variety of feelings and emotions, and they can express their emotions very clearly, but there is no sentience intimate with either their feelings or emotions.

Noname:

A pregnant woman in our universe discovers that her unborn child has a severely defective brain. The defect is so severe that the child would never have more than an idiot level of intelligence. The discovery was made at the earliest stage of development for which sentience could be detected. The unborn child was found to possess sentience, despite the lack of capacity for intelligence. I will call this unborn child "Noname."

The mother of Noname, not wanting to bring an idiot into the world, decides to terminate her pregnancy. She agrees to donate her unborn child to a team of scientists, who indicate a most urgent need for it. These scientists discovered a wormhole that connects our universe with the Universe of Nonsentience. Through this wormhole, the scientists received messages from the Universe of Nonsentience about their impending doom. Somehow, it was determined that a child such as Noname would be the key to saving the Universe of Nonsentience from devastation.

The scientists, in their zeal to save such a marvellous universe, extract the core sentience from Noname. They embed Noname’s sentience into a system that could be launched into the wormhole and sustain the sentience for a thousand years. The sentience of Noname, even with its lack of intelligence, has the properties needed to interact with the Universe of Nonsentience to prevent the devastating shift in its fundamental physical constants. The only negative effect of this process is that the sentience of Noname would be subject to torment for a thousand years. The torment that Noname would experience would be the most intense that any sentient being could possibly experience. For the entire thousand years, this torment would continue at full intensity, with absolutely no interruption.

Nonsentients seek to do only what is beneficial for everyone. Not being sentient, they have no concept of sentient torment. The scientists do not inform the Nonsentients that Noname would be subject to anything undesirable. These scientists do have compassion for Noname, but they consider the benefits to the great Universe of Nonsentience to far outweigh the harm done to Noname.

The Value of Sentience:

I now have a question for compassionate humanists. Suppose you were given the opportunity to change the fate of Noname. Just before Noname is launched into the wormhole, you could throw a switch that would turn off the torment mechanism. Noname’s sentience would still be launched into the wormhole but would experience a thousand years of contentment with an idiot level of intelligence. However, doing this would bring a trillion years of devastation to the universe of Nonsentience. You could decide not to throw the switch, so that you may grant all 10^30 highly intelligent inhabitants of Nonsentience a trillion years of beauty and harmony. In doing so, you would doom Noname to a thousand years of unspeakably intense and relentless torment. Whatever you decide, the wormhole will be closed upon Noname’s entry, and there will never be any more communication between the universes. What would your system of values lead you to decide?
Let VB be the value you would place on a trillion years of beauty and harmony in the entire universe of Nonsentience.
Let VD be the value you would place on a trillion years of devastation in the entire universe of Nonsentience.
Let VT be the value you would place on a thousand years of unspeakably intense and relentless torment experienced by Noname.
Let VP be the value you would place on a thousand years of peace experienced by Noname, with an idiot level of intelligence.
If your value system places the greatest emphasis on intelligence and economics, then your value inequality would likely be
VB + VT > VD + VP.
If your value system considers sentience to be absolutely essential to ultimate value, then your value inequality would likely be
VD + VP > VB + VT.

For those who would choose to spare Noname at the expense of the Universe of Nonsentience, here is an additional question. How many more universes similar to the Universe of Nonsentience must Noname be in a position to save concurrently before you would be willing to let that single unit of unintelligent sentience suffer just one-thousand years of torment?

Are Time and Personal Identity Relevant to Sentience Apart from Intelligence?

For anyone who would have the greater compassion on the Universe of Nonsentience, I have a further question. Would you be willing to donate your own core sentience to save its inhabitants from devastation? Suppose you have lived a full life and are now dying of a terminal illness. Suppose your mind is still clear, but you have only an hour to live. Suppose the story is changed such that Noname does not exist, and you alone can fulfil the role of saviour of the Universe of Nonsentience. Suppose you have two choices before you. You could simply die within an hour and thereby consign the Universe of Nonsentience to a trillion years of devastation. Your other choice is to donate your core sentience to save the inhabitants of the Universe of Nonsentience. In donating your core sentience, you will subject it to the same thousand years of unspeakably intense and relentless torment that was described for Noname. No matter what you decide, you cannot retain any of your intelligence, whether in ordinary death or in the donation of your core sentience. No one in our universe will be affected in any way by your decision. However, your decision will make a dramatic difference for 10^30 marvellously intelligent entities in the Universe of Nonsentience for a trillion years. If you decide to donate your core sentience to save them, your donation will be highly appreciated. Every inhabitant of the Universe of Nonsentience will be informed about all the highlights of your life by which you desire most to be remembered and will speak very highly of you. Although their intelligence is radically superior to the intelligence you had, they will highly treasure these memories of your life, because they will be informed about an amazing and mysterious power within you that has rescued them from a great misfortune. Nonsentients will never detect you as any physical or visible presence, but they will be given compelling cause to believe that you are the saviour of their universe. All Nonsentients will treasure you above all of their marvellous beauty because of the invisible and mysterious power within you that has saved them from a trillion years of devastation and has opened the door to a trillion years of marvellous beauty and harmony. However, Nonsentients will appreciate the legend of your sacrifice and the life you lived in a purely intelligent way, because they are not sentient beings.

The economic advantages of donating your core sentience are staggering. How unbearable could one second of the most intense possible torment be, if you neither anticipate it in advance nor remember it once the second has passed? Yet, a single entity-second of your donation is worth more than 3*10^31 (thirty-million-trillion-trillion) entity-years for marvellously intelligent entities in the Universe of Nonsentience. You are donating only your core sentience. Therefore, your intelligence suffers nothing at all in the donation, because it no longer exists. Without intelligence, your core sentience experiences the most extreme of torment in each present moment, but it has no ability to meditate on either past or future torment. Your core sentience must suffer for a thousand years to save Nonsentience, but it suffers each second of the torment only one at a time, until the thousand years are complete. When the thousand years are complete, your core sentience suffers no more and remembers nothing of what it has suffered.

For those who would accept the offer to donate their core sentience, I have this additional question. Would you be interested in donating your core sentience for a billion years to consecutively save a million universes like the Universe of Nonsentience? For those who previously had the greater compassion on Nonsentience but would refuse to donate their core sentience for just one thousand years, I have also one more question. Why were you willing to sacrifice Noname?

Notes:

[1] A steradian is a quantity associated with a solid angle. Solid angle is a dimensionless measure of area on a sphere. One steradian of solid angle covers about 8% of the total area of a sphere. Four-pi is approximately equal to 12.6. A whole sphere has four-pi steradians of solid angle. The Earth may be viewed as a tiny area on a sphere that has the Sun as its centre. The solid angle of the Sun’s radiation hitting the Earth is less than six-billionths of a steradian. The fraction of light from the Sun that reaches the Earth is approximately one part in two billion.

[2] David J. Chalmers, 1995, Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness, http://concs.net/papers/facing.html

Further into his paper, Dr. Chalmers discusses the possibility of an explanatory bridge to develop a naturalistic theory of conscious experience. He admits that no satisfactory naturalistic theory of conscious experience yet exists, but he proposes two key principles to guide efforts in developing such a theory. These two principles are the principle of structural coherence and the principle of organisational invariance.

The principle of structural coherence is highly compatible with both natural dualism and a biblically based supernatural dualism. However, the biblical view adds a provision that coherence of the spirit to the physical structure depends only on spatiotemporal continuity of the biological entity and is independent of even great structural and informational changes within the biological entity. During the entire biological existence of the person, the spirit of the person is coherent with the mind’s physical structure. This coherence could sometimes extend well beyond physical death, with the possibility of physical resurrection.

The principle of organisational invariance may be a significant point of departure between supernatural dualism and natural dualism. Identical twins may develop structural and informational differences at very early stages of development, but they are much more similar to each other at their earliest sentience manifestation than they are to what either of them will be at the age of thirty years. By the principle of organisational invariance, the identical twins would have a closer sentient identity to each other at their earliest sentience manifestation than they would to either of their thirty years of age versions. In biblical supernatural dualism, each twin has a unique fixed sentient identity that is invariant with physical development. Otherwise, God could not have called Isaiah from his mother’s womb (Isaiah 49:1). Therefore, the biblical view does not permit personal identity to change with time. This is very much contrary to the principle of organisational invariance and is absolutely inexplicable in naturalistic terms. Two major problems in testing supernatural dualism are those of awareness and reportability. I could adamantly affirm that my sentient identity has remained unchanged for as far back as I can remember. However, a skeptic could counter this by saying that my sentient identity did change with time, but the change was so gradual that it gave me the illusion of being invariant.

Article Source: http://journal.ilovephilosophy.com

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