Red, diamond and opale button thought experiments

 

The concept of a thought experiment with a red button that would annihilate all life when pressed emerged as part of the discussion of extinctionism. The most popular version of the experiment is to imagine a mechanism that, when activated, would immediately end all life in space. What should a person faced with such a choice do, what good arguments for each action can be distinguished, and how does the thought experiment relate to practical, present, and future actions, including the goals of advanced civilizations and superintelligence, remain unambiguously unresolved. If there was an option to eliminate only suffering, or only the desires that are its source, without the cosmic euthanasia of life, maybe another mechanism should be selected. Would it be a moral duty to save a life from an inevitable, completely natural catastrophe by pushing a button? Is the creation of a completely new universe subject to the same ethical judgment as not pressing a button? It would seem that there is a morally significant difference between not creating a new life and physically taking an existing life. In fact, the differences are significant, and they usually result from the adopted hierarchy of values ​​and more or less arbitrary assumptions. Indeed, I am convinced that it is precisely for the original set of assumptions about the value of life and the various forms of experience that play a key role here. I greatly respect coherent systems of assumptions, wholly whatever conclusions they lead to. I don't know if my system of assumptions is accurate. I think so at the moment. Certainly, regardless of the assumption system adopted, as long as suffering is seen as something of great value, as something that should be stopped, at least some of the proposed thought experiments and their variations may turn out to be thought-provoking.

The version of the red button originally presented by Gary Inmendham sounds more or less like this: if you, knowing the history of the earth, its evolution, and its nature, knowing that the most intelligent creature on earth is the great apes, and knowing with 100% certainty that never, and in any way, no higher intelligence would emerge on it. If you were out of the earth with a button in front of you that annihilates the earth instantly, would you press it? Would you feel comfortable knowing the amount of suffering you haven't prevented, allowing all the sentient life in the biosphere to torture and kill themselves the most sophisticated ways, only to die out eventually?

The second version, presented a moment later, is already slightly changed: A button does not exterminate everything, it only causes global sterilization. From now on, reproduction is not possible. Originally, only non-sentient beings remain, the last generation of animals is quietly dying out. We can assume that sentient beings will not rise again. Would you press that button?

Nothing seems to be said in the original version about the extinction of intelligence. The only intelligent element in the original experiment is a being with the choice of pressing the button.

Imagine another version. Earth is the only planet where life will ever develop. Nothing alive exists yet. By pressing a button you can stop life from being born of chemicals. Would you press that button?

If you could stop the universe from creating any kind of life, not only the earth but billions of other planets, from allowing the development of sentient creatures, would you do it?

Knowing that there is a completely natural phenomenon in the universe that prevents life from arising, and being able to stop it, just like that, with one choice, would you consider letting the universe be naturally empty the same thing as pressing a button that makes life never arise?

Depending on what we base our value system on, we can treat different versions of the thought experiment differently, depending on how much suffering is prevented, how much satisfaction is prevented, or what effect what we do will have on intelligent beings.

In the case of nature, the relationship between suffering and satisfaction is clear. The process of evolution is pointless, brutal, and cruel. There is no serious doubt that the amount of suffering contained in nature is many times greater than any pleasure felt by living creatures.

In the public discussion, if a red button thought experiment is already emerging, it is usually presented in a more controversial form, involving people. What if we could wipe out all existence in an instant, assuming that there is no life outside the earth? All life, all animals, including humans, would be unconsciously annihilated, and life would never appear again, in any way and any form? All future suffering and future satisfaction, along with all potential for their existence, would evaporate in a millisecond. Is it possible to justify not pressing a button? Is it possible to justify pressing it?

What if, in a totally deterministic universe, we were shown the future. Trillions of years of future lives, developing and dying civilizations, destroyed and renewed biospheres, tens of trillions of lives being born and dying in thousands of paradises and hells. All of this can be stopped at the cost of less suffering. When you press a button, there will be a hundred years of torture for any living being, with or without you, at will, but it will be a lot less suffering than if you didn't press the button. We can assume that the ratio of profit and loss would be the same if pleasure or fulfillment were treated as a positive value in itself. Is it possible to justify, not from a psychological but from an ethical point of view, not pressing a button? What if after pressing a button there was a minute of agony? What if the probability of causing pain was only at a certain level?

Here again, the answer depends on the assumptions we made. Surely a pure negative consequentialist should lean towards the option that causes less suffering, even if it were only a unit of measure less. The question comes down to specifying whether life has value, and more specifically what forms of conscious experience have what values.

A consistent approach to an experiment is often hampered by paying attention to things other than the final gains and loses ratio. According to some concepts, there is a possibility that the vacuum that makes up our universe is so-called false vacuum, unstable, and it is possible to collapse into a real vacuum. It can happen at any moment and in any place in the cosmos with some minimal probability. The resulting reaction propagates at the speed of light, creating bubbles in space. They are essentially death bubbles and this is also their name. Everything outside such a bubble is immediately annihilated when it comes into contact with a real vacuum. Suppose the earth is naturally annihilated in this way. There is no other possibility, every scenario of earth's life existence requires just such death, immediate, unconscious, and painless, for every being on the planet. Only by pressing a button, you can stop this scenario. When we press a button, it will never happen, and the universe will continue to function as it does now, with no signs of death bubbles and false vacuum decay. Would you press that button? Is it possible to convincingly justify pressing a button, or is it possible to justify not pressing it?

The end-of-life scenario with the push of a button is no different from not stopping a death bubble. The scenario of stopping the decay of the false vacuum is no other than letting the earth exist. What's the difference? Is the imaginary "no one has the right to decide for others", even when cosmic suffering is at stake, torture that no human mind can even imagine, a sufficient reason?

In addition to several versions of the red button experiment, other experiments have also been proposed. A green button would only eliminate suffering. I'll try to use another term, because the concept of the green button is not widely publicized yet, and the green button itself has already been used in another thought experiment where a person teleporting to Mars pushed the button, which resulted in her body disintegrating on the earth and reintegrating immediately on Mars. The question, in this case, is whether it is safe to press such a button. Therefore, for the description of an already known experiment, it will be more pleasant to imagine another button, especially since I would like to break the original version into two.

We have a red and an opal button in front of us. Red causes an immediate annihilation of all life, desires, and sufferings. Never again will no life appear in the abyss of space. The opal button causes an immediate annihilation of suffering itself. All desires can be fulfilled, the world becomes a paradise. As David Pearce writes in his hedonistic imperative: "The Hedonistic Imperative outlines how genetic engineering and nanotechnology will abolish suffering in all sentient life. The abolitionist project is hugely ambitious but technically feasible. It is also instrumentally rational and morally urgent. The metabolic pathways of pain and malaise evolved because they served the fitness of our genes in the ancestral environment. They will be replaced by a different sort of neural architecture - a motivational system based on heritable gradients of bliss. States of sublime well-being are destined to become the genetically pre-programmed norm of mental health. It is predicted that the world's last unpleasant experience will be a precisely dateable event. ". After pressing the opal button, the gradient of dissatisfaction and unfulfilled desires will be replaced by the gradient of bliss. From now on, the world will be full of happy, fulfilled beings. There will be no longer dissatisfaction and suffering. From a hedonistic perspective, this seems to be the most desirable future.

The hedonistic way of perceiving the world, therefore considering suffering as bad and pleasure as good, is not the only one, however. In 2017, Lukas Gloor coined the term tranquilism, rejecting philosophical hedonism. In a heuristic shortcut, satisfaction in the form of tranquility is posed here as good, while the existence of unfulfilled desires is an undesirable state. This view is not new, it was already presented in ancient Greece, and now, in some forms, it is the basis of Buddhism and other eastern philosophical and religious currents. The existence of the greatest paradise and the fulfillment of billions of desires is no better than an average life in which several dozen basic desires are absolutely and perfectly fulfilled, or a state of technological nirvana in which desires are eliminated to the maximum extent possible. It is not an active euphoria but peace, deep satisfaction that makes the state we are in is complete, 100% sufficient, is a goal worth achieving. From a subjective point of view, being fulfilled after realizing all dreams, experiencing all mystical exultations, and experiencing all the greatest loves is nothing better than a state of complete, undisturbed peace devoid of euphoria and mystical sensations, as both are complete satisfaction.

So, temporarily relinquishing hedonism, let us consider the idea of ​​a diamond, tranquilistic, button. Imagine that by pressing a diamond button we can make all metaphysical non-fulfillment disappear. In one moment, minds will be desireless by experiencing immediate enlightenment. Feeling pain will not imply suffering, and the minds of all sentient beings will only feel complete satisfaction. Contrary to the previous scenario, we are not dealing here with the fulfillment of desires, but with their elimination. The world might look like it always has, but pointlessness would no longer be essential, suffering would not exist, although the pain would not have to go away. Every living entity would be completely indifferent about what is going to happen to them since without any needs there would be no preferences. Mechanical reproduction, devouring, rape and murder, genocide, industrial farming, catastrophes, and torture would bring about the same amount of suffering as euphoria or the fulfillment of dreams that no longer exist. The second scenario is to get rid of even that, give up any lives, give up experiences that are already unnecessary and indifferent, and produce an equivalent of nirvana for each being. contemplating absolutely nothing for eternity, or to the end of the universe, as long as it gives us perfectly same amount of satisfaction as the wildest heavens, seem to be no worse, and maybe better, than living to fulfill new desires, even if the gradient of orgasmic bliss is what motivates sentience.

I'm pretty sure there would be a great number of people who would find the second scenario, as well as the sole idea of the diamond button unacceptable. The question is, why exactly would it be so? Eternal peace and satisfaction are in no way worse if we contemplate nothing than to experience cosmic love and fulfillment of desires guided by a gradient of bliss. Outlining the differences in the best possible worlds postulated by philosophical hedonism and tranquilism is an extensive topic that deserves its own discussion.

One can think of a situation in which the presented thought experiments cease to be fiction and become reality. At present, nothing seems to prevent advanced civilizations from creating simulated realities, and there are convincing arguments that we ourselves if we are one of the identical copies or a significant part of our measure if we accept some form of trans-world identity, are contained in simulations. The red button dilemma can actually be a real moral problem, in the distant future or at different levels of nested simulations. Civilizations that create simulations, perhaps future posthumans, or even our own civilization in the not-too-distant future, may find themselves in such a situation. what will they do? If we could turn the simulation off, would it be different from not creating it in the first place? If we could create simulations, would we treat that as a moral duty? Is it even justifiable to create a simulation in which there is suffering, even along with all fulfillment and pleasure?

So we have three buttons in front of us. They all work immediately. Red annihilates all existence, all life along with its potential to exist is immediately turned off. The opal button causes the gradient of dissatisfaction to be replaced immediately by a gradient of bliss, or gradually so that there is no objection to the destruction of the personality of people experiencing change. A diamond button causes the elimination of unfulfilled desires, every mind, including the minds of animals, of course, feels only enlightened peace and satisfaction, completely indifferent to the world around it. Which button should you choose, or any at all, and what should you base your choice on?

I do not consider myself a moral pluralist and from my perspective, suffering is the only value. However, this is not a complete certainty, as dissatisfaction or fulfillment set as the only value may result in a similar worldview. I don't find life worthwhile in itself, nor am I convinced that the gradient of fulfillment is metaphysically different from the gradient of dissatisfaction. For the time being, however, I don't see desires as bad in themselves. Likewise, I don't see life or existence as bad in and of itself. Suffering is bad in itself, it is a negative state, if we treat suffering as intense dissatisfaction, we can consider any state of unmet need as a negative state, even if it is not related to suffering. However, this is not a view that must be held.

If there was a button to annihilate suffering, all its forms, including those negatively perceived by the mind as non-fulfillment, so all I perceive to be worthy and all I care about, it would be more than enough.

If I had a choice of three buttons, none of which would allow any suffering and no potential for its existence, I don't see a compelling reason to prefer either of them. Perhaps, not being sure of one's value system, recognizing that perhaps happiness or fulfillment has value in itself, one should press the button that annihilates the least. Red annihilates life, desires, and suffering, diamond annihilates desires and suffering, opal only suffering, leaving fulfilling desires, happiness, and life. With good reasons to believe that happiness matters in itself, or even without good reason to doubt it, in a hypothetical situation, perhaps an opal button should be pressed. I hope that when a future existence chooses its future, it will be guided by well-thought-out motives and knowledge we don't have for now.

I would like to separate what I feel from what I think after reflection. I associate the vision of a diamond button with taking existing beings of their entire identity, destroying them, and replacing them with mechanisms that feel only blissful indifference, perhaps only indifference, a fate not much different from death. Feeling eternal bliss itself seems to be burdened with one desire, the desire to persist in this state, while the complete elimination of desires should remove the desire to persist as well. I do not find this scenario tempting, but I do not see a compelling reason why it should be an undesirable state.

Cravings can be minimized by combining visions of the world after pressing a diamond and an opal button. Eternal fulfillment, the maximum mystical union with the nature of the world and sentient existence, should be synonymous with the diverse paradise usually imagined by transhumanists. For people at the present level of development, paradise, a place where desires are fulfilled and not abandoned, seems the most tempting for now. However, seeing that it is because of our psychological mechanism, which forces us to pursue goals and strive for new achievements, I do not see this mechanism as something necessary or useful. Any progress, dreams, pure satisfaction, or ensuring existence for an eternal blissful existence is completely pointless to me in my innermost being. Yes, it is beautiful, I would like to taste such a paradise myself, but nothing has yet convinced me that metaphysically it would be a state in any way better than non-existence. The fact that there is probably no vision more beautiful for the human mind than eternal bliss, a diverse paradise devoid of boredom and suffering, shows to me how deeply ingrained in the psyche is the desire to change the present state of the cosmos.

Beauty, delight, and existential fulfillment can be created in a potentially unlimited number of ways. The paradise of alien civilizations, animals, or even transhumans would probably be completely different from our imaginations. In fact, we would probably perceive most of the havens as caricatured anomalies. None of the havens could even exist forever, as I have described before for the sake of simplicity. The number of sensations possible for the minds to feel is absolutely finite, sooner or later, after a billion, a trillion, or a quintillion years, the whole of the possible experiences in life would be realized. Then what? What, when there is nothing left to feel? Does the nonexistence, waiting for our souls, postponed by an unimaginable number of joyful cosmic eras really make existence anything better than immediate, unconscious, and painless death?

Therefore, I do not see the need to implement the vision presented by David Pearce in the hedonistic imperative. I don't see the need to create happiness and fulfillment in isolation from unfulfillment, dissatisfaction, and suffering other than by preventing and minimizing harm. Likewise, I do not see the need to minimize or give up desires as long as it does not further minimize suffering. If something is not contributing to minimizing suffering, I see absolutely no need to pursue such a goal. Apart from the assumption of moral pluralism, I know of no good reason why either option should be preferred. I think that with the assumptions adopted in this way, a completely rational approach would be absolute indifference to which button to choose.

In reality, the potential for suffering cannot be eliminated. In none of the three scenarios, if it were to be painstakingly implemented by advanced technologies, superintelligence, and the sophisticated endeavors of future civilizations, there is neither a guarantee nor the possibility of eliminating the existence of suffering from the potential of it altogether. The ideal plan for the sterilization of space, in which swarms of super-intelligent, self-replicating machines painlessly euthanize biospheres and civilizations, as well as prevent any form of life in the universe, cannot eliminate all suffering. Even moving at relativistic velocities, in the near future, due to the expansion of space, it will not be physically possible in any way to leave our local supercluster of galaxies. The absolute majority of the present observable cosmos, not to mention the potential infinity of space beyond our Hubble volume, will remain forever unattainable to us. Superintelligence that eliminates life in our scrap of available space is also not logically reliable, apart from the obvious and chilling dangers of superintelligence, which may turn out to be the most terrible invention in the history of the universe, billions of times worse than all the suffering of the entire visible cosmos that would have to be experienced without it, even benevolent superintelligence can fail and lead to cosmic suffering, perhaps in ways we cannot understand or imagine. One such concern would be the emergence of a virus infecting the minds of altruistic superintelligence through a bug in the code. However, the probability of such an event, when an effective altruistic superintelligence will already exist, especially having the best possible - designed by superintelligence - mechanisms of defense against such dangers, is negligible in practice. Whether we like it or not, superintelligence is likely to arise in any scenario for the future development of civilization. The singularity is close and possibly unstoppable. Destroying the world before the rise of superintelligence may not be such a crazy idea anyway, the profit and loss account of its creation probably ranges from minus infinity to infinity.

Even if the cosmos is effectively kept lifeless, the heat death of the universe will sooner or later eliminate all matter. However, as a result of almost infinitely small probabilities, quantum fluctuations will spontaneously create matter, including all possible finite configurations of atoms and information, along with minds feeling suffering. This exotic scenario seems inevitable because it is impossible to destroy the cosmos itself, the energy seems eternal. Assuming that the suffering of two identical minds results in twice the amount of suffering, we can do nothing about the suffering of the Boltzmann brains. I emphasize this to show that the potential for suffering can never be brought to zero.

Both the practical realizations of paradise, in the form of nirvana or as represented by David Pearce's gradient of bliss, there is as much space for superintelligence viruses. In fact, there is an enormously greater danger of implying suffering because there are trillions of entities available at any moment in the virtual worlds or the material cosmos. Even if the probability of causing enormous suffering is minimal, it is never zero and can never be zero. Is the finite, orgasmic fulfillment of trillions of beings worth the hellish suffering of just one being? Is the possibility of turning even a fraction of paradise into hell, even unimaginably small, worthy of creating paradise? Not for me. I don't see a logical way to eliminate the suffering potential. If I had to choose a scenario, I would choose one that limits this potential to the absolute minimum that is achievable. I don't know which scenario it would be. Personally, it seems to me that the existence of fewer entities and less diverse kinds of them minimizes the danger of astronomical suffering more than the creation of the most beautiful utopian paradises full of happy sentient creatures. If we can, by not creating the heavens, minimize the likelihood of the worst suffering of even one being, other things equal, I would like paradise never to come into existence, and I would let the universe become an empty and silent place.

All that I have presented in this material are my reflections, supported by a limited view of cosmology and knowledge of transhumanistic expectations. Assumptions about giving value are, as always, crucial. We can implement any of the options, humanity seems to have the potential to create technology that allows it. Personally, I am convinced that functional superintelligence will most likely be humanity's last invention, then reality becomes unpredictable. We can think with our mediocre intelligence whether to press a diamond, opal, or red button, but in reality, the future of the earth, if not destroyed sooner, will be decided by a superintelligence, in the form of artificial or neuromorphic intelligence, transhumans or posthumans. I hope they will have the same goals as those of sentient, suffering life. I believe it is up to them to make the final decision as to whether to prevent the future life, make it hell, or an ultimately pointless paradise.