🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan27.193658.12593@mp.cs.niu.edu>, rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:

|> >                                      Suppose someone offered you
|> >[insert absurd sum of money or some other desideratum] to be
|> >tortured painfully and at length under the conditions that (a) no
|> >permanent harm or disfigurement would result, and (b) that you
|> >would be given a drug so that although the torture would be felt,
|> >you would have no memory of it after it was over.  Would you take
|> >the job?
|> 
|> I certainly wouldn't.
|> 
|> >          If not, why not?
|> 
|> I don't like the idea of people monkeying around with my mind, and I
|> would not trust their assurances anyway.
|> 

I think I generally wouldn't either.  (Circumstances could alter this,
of course.  If I knew I was going to die soon and that the financial security
of my family could be established in this way, I think things would be
different, though that is perhaps a bit extreme.)  One thing that
always bothered me about this situation is that it seemed too much
like being paid for someone else to feel my pain.  Sure, *I* wouldn't
remember it.  In fact *no one* would remember feeling the pain.  But
certainly someone *would* feel the pain.  (Now *who* would that be?
Perhaps some interesting questions of personal identity arise here.)
Somehow it seemed to me that if I wouldn't take the deal in the
absence of the memory suppressing drug, I shouldn't take the deal
with that as part of it.  I am not sure that this is an entirely
consistent position.
-- 
Gary H. Merrill  [Principal Systems Developer, C Compiler Development]
SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC  27513 / (919) 677-8000
sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm