Would the friend judge the shepherd as a bad person? But, once the shepherd reloads his save and becomes a shepherd once again, do those actions remain wrong? In other words, suppose the shepherd told his friend about what he had done and the friend believed him. Our intuition is that those actions are wrong. So suppose the ancestor of Gyges found this remote-instead of the ring-and did as he did, raping the queen, killing the king, and taking over rulership of the land. ![]() So the user might feel empathetic pain while they commit atrocities, or before they reload the save, but afterward it is not obvious these feelings would remain. In some sense, those minds-the ones that experienced the harm induced by the remote user-do not exist. Why would they feel guilt? Upon reloading a save, none of those people they hurt would feel hurt or even remember the experience. However, this response is not as helpful with the remote scenario, at least at first glance.Ĭonsider the person who gleefully begins to use the remote and does all sorts of horrible things to people, just for fun or out of curiosity. This pain and guilt would mean the just man would end up happier, though he would lack the material comforts the unjust man might obtain. One response to Glaucon’s argument is that the unjust man would not be happy because people generally feel empathetic pain when they hurt others, and feel guilt afterward for acting unjustly. Glaucon indicates that not only would they almost certainly act the same, but if the just man refrained from unjust actions he would actually be foolish for doing so while the man who acts unjustly would be happier. Glaucon then asks Socrates to imagine two such rings, one placed on a just man, another on an unjust man and to consider whether their actions would differ. With the power of the ring, the man, a shepherd, rapes the queen of the land and kills the king, taking his place (in fact this man is supposed to be the ancestor of Gyges, a historical king of Lydia). In The Republic, Plato presents, through the character Glaucon, the story of a man who finds a ring, the so-called “Ring of Gyges” which allows the wearer to become invisible. The reader of Plato cannot help but be reminded of the story of the Ring of Gyges by this scenario. Doing wrong before reloading might be the ultimate victimless crime. ![]() The moral dimension of this scenario comes with this question: would you continue to act in accordance with virtue if you knew your actions had “no consequences” beyond how they affected your mind? If you would, why? People are already comfortable with what they call “victimless” crimes. So, suppose you, mortal and small as you are, possessed a remote that allowed you to contact the Simulators and signal to them to load a previous save state (excepting, presumably, the state of your mind, as otherwise you would not remember your experiences between saving and reloading, rendering the remote useless). Indeed, if the simulation argument is true, something like this would be the case. While practically impossible, it is imaginable that someone could record the values of all of these and so be able to generate a save state of the universe at a given time. It is conceivable that one could record the “save state” of the actual universe since the state of the universe is determined by the variable excitations of certain “fields,” like the electromagnetic field or the Higgs-induced mass field, as well as by the distribution of those excitations in the fabric of spacetime. In a video game, a “save state,” is a file that contains information about the save point and amounts to a record of the values of different variables changeable by participation in the game. ![]() The remote is meant to mimic the way many video games work, where one is able to save and return to the save point if one fails or dies, i.e. Before that, however, let us explore further how exactly this remote works. In this piece, I hope to explore what it means for consequences to matter morally and whether we should be thinking in terms of ultimate consequences at all. In it, Rick invents for Morty a remote that allows him to “save” his life at a certain point, try out different experiences and “load” the save to return back to the save point with no consequences. The latest episode of sci-fi comedy Rick and Morty presented a variation on an idea previously seen in Groundhog Day among other stories. “Rick and Morty action figures” by christian brooks is free for commercial use (via Wallpaper Flare)
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |