Anti-Utilitarianism

[theVOID]

the consciousness barrier of individuals.

Misnomer.

When we are aggregating things like pleasure, pain, preference, like or dislike it's different. It's different because those things require conscious experience.

No, they don't.

Firstly there is self-reporting about conscious experience.

Secondly, there are MRI scans and strong links in terms of both causation and correlation.

When we aggregate individuals' say, pain together we are aggregating a total of pain that doesn't actually exist.

IT DOES EXIST, it exists inside the brains of the individuals being examined. We DO NOT need to have some means to simultaneously experience all the pain to make statements about it in terms of quantity OR quality, just like we do not need to combine a group of houses into a single house to make statements about the average temperature inside.

It doesn't actually exist because not one of the individuals experience any more pain than their own and that's relevant because experienced pain is the only kind of existent pain and pleasure. Experienced pain is existent pain. Nonexperienced pain is nonexistent pain. Because pain requires experience.

It does not fucking matter, ANY conscious experience can be evaluated, especially relative to OTHER experiences. I do not need to experience the pain of two other people simultaneously to know that punching one will cause more pain to one than slapping the other, I have three options, 1) Empathy, 2) Receiving their reports, 3) Neurological scans.

Experienced happiness is the only kind of happiness. Not one individual experiences more than their own, so when you aggregate them you are aggregating nonexperienced and nonexistent happiness.

And it DOES exist, INSIDE THEIR BRAINS. I do not need to be their brain OR experience in my brain what they experience in their brain in order to make meaningful claims about it. It is the same way we can tell by laughter how many people enjoyed a joke and how many did not, we can then use that data to make meaningful claims about which joke was better for the most people. We can ALSO look at how hard they laughed or how strongly they reacted against it for the Qualitative comparison.

If everyone experiences happiness the same, then each individual matters and should be cared about, but it makes no sense to aggregate them because, as I said, no one experiences any more than their own happiness, no one experiences anything close to the aggregate. Nonexperienced happiness is nonexistent happiness.

Again, it IS experienced.

Each individual DOES matter, they CONTRIBUTE to data used in the evaluation.

Not one individual experiences any more pain in the larger group. None=not one. And not one experiencing more = no more existent pain because nonexperienced pain is nonexistent pain.

Oh for fucks sake, stop using the same exact straw man each time. For the LAST time:

I DO NOT REQUIRE THAT THE PAIN BE COLLECTIVELY EXPERIENCED TO MAKE STATEMENTS ABOUT THE QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF THE DISTRIBUTION.

Individuals are all that suffer. There is no more suffering than the sufferers. To aggregate different sufferers suffering together is to care about suffering that is nonexperienced and therefore nonexistent.

Let me make it REALLY simple for you.

Group 1 has 10 people suffering 1x.

Group 2 has 5 people suffering 1x.

Which group contains the more suffering individuals?

If you had to chose between group 1 or group 2 suffering 1x and wanted to know which choice would result in the least amount of suffering, which option would you chose?

At which point in this evaluation did the suffering cease to exist?

And any aggregated happiness is happiness that is experienced by no one in the group. And because it's not experienced by anyone it's not existent. Only the separate values of happiness for each individual exists, the aggregated total is a fantasy.

I'm fucking over this, it's like jamming chop sticks up my nose and into my brain whilst banging my head against a brick wall.

To any of the individuals yes. But to an aggregate that is not experienced by any individuals whatsoever and therefore not existent, no.

It DOES EXIST...

X Likes the experience of seeing red
Y likes the experience of seeing blue
Z likes the experience of seeing red

You can introduce either Red or Blue light into the room.

Which will be most in line with the preferences of the most individuals? RED
What is the ratio of people who would like RED to BLUE? 2:1
At which point did we attempt to aggregate their preferences into a shade or purple? NEVER.

This comparison is perfectly valid and is in principle NO DIFFERENT to evaluating ANY other conscious experience

Yes. If, truly, not one individual suffers any more than their own, combining them makes no sense because not one individual suffers more (besides the man). Caring about the aggregate of suffering is caring about nonexistent suffering because no one experiences the aggregate suffering, therefore it doesn't exist in reality because suffering needs to be in experienced in order for it to actually exist.

So here is a moral dilemma for you:

You have a man who is going to die an excruciating death with a suffering value of 10 unless he rapes 10 women - The individual experience of rape is less painful that the death this man will face, with a suffering value of 5. You have to make a decision about whether you will let this man out of his cell and into the rooms with the women.

What do you chose? Why?

If you chose to let the man rape the 10 women then not only are you WRONG, but you're fucking DANGEROUS, DELUDED and INSANE and should NEVER be elected into or given ANY form of power EVER.

No, you haven't demonstrated it because you still insist on aggregating pain, pleasure or preference together when the aggregate is nonexperienced and therefore nonexistent. If you concede that you're caring about non-experienced and non-existent pain then, fine, you've demonstrated that you can aggregate together a bunch of pleasure, pain or preferences despite the fact that it isn't experienced by anyone and therefore doesn't exist.

I've already showed you WHY that's complete bullshit, the experience DOES exist and we CAN make meaningful evaluations.

No you haven't proved it, you think you have, there's a difference. Your aggregation makes no sense in actual reality, you're just playing with numbers, see above.

No, my argument makes perfect sense, your objection is what is complete bullshit.

As for 'absurd consequence', I don't care how absurd a consequence is if it actually makes rational and logical sense. You do appear to be committing the Argument from Personal Incredulity. Your appeal to what you consider absurd is not a rational argument. As for your actual argument, see above.

It isn't logical, your main objection, that for us to make meaningful comparisons about experiential phenomenon we need to experience all relevant experience ourselves is completely wrong, thus your assertion that because it cannot be done the evaluation fails is FALSE.

You're the one who has been aggregating, not me.

I've hardly used the term aggregate except in direct response to where you've misused it. A comparative evaluation of data in a larger context is completely legitimate and is commonplace in psychology and neuroscience.