I want to be clear: I hate this. I hate everything about it. HOWEVER...

If you want to argue against wetware then we need a better argument than this. The same ideas were used to argue against stem cell research, IVF, and many other treatments and ideas that have saved and helped lives. Unit 731 isn't an apt comparison because cells are not inherently sentient to our knowledge. If they were it would absolutely shatter the profession of medical ethics as we know it.

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bondarchuk a day ago | parent | next [-]

I honestly don't know if better arguments are needed. I think most people simply have no idea that this research is happening right now, and if they did the vast majority would be against it. Feels fundamentally different from stem cell or IVF.

We know that human brain cells in sufficiently large and complex assemblages are sentient (I don't know if the word "inherently" has any purpose here). We know this research aims at making the assemblages larger and more complex. It's a fundamentally different kind of argument IMO compared to those against e.g. stem cells or IVF.

(Slight aside but did you know that they're also doing tests on whole human brains taken from corpses, and they give them tranquilizers "just to be sure"? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48212992)

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jibalt a day ago | parent [-]

> We know that human brain cells in sufficiently large and complex assemblages are sentient

No, we know that human brain cells in specific configurations honed by billions of years of evolution and in specific states are sentient. (The same collection of cells in a slightly different state or a different arrangement might be permanently comatose).

This argument is no different in kind than the claim that Mamdani and El-Sayed are terrorists: it's a fallacy of affirmation of the consequent.

	▲	bondarchuk 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Sure (it was a mistake to say "sufficiently complex" without qualification, obviously only certain very specific complex assemblages will actually be conscious). But if you think the "honed by billions of years of evolution" thing is relevant (on which I agree with you), you also have to acknowledge that the same goes for the neurons themselves. And not just the neurons in isolation, but also their capacity for self-organizing into computationally useful structures, possibly in response to certain stimuli, which you can be sure this type of research will try to take advantage of.

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saidnooneever a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

how do u know cells are not sentient to our knowledge? (i am serious, not pulling ur strings. i want to know about proof)

	▲	jibalt a day ago \| parent [-]
		How do you know your fingernails aren't sentient? Better stop clipping them immediately! > i want to know about proof The epistemology of empirical science is inference to the best explanation, not proof. As pointed out by Hume centuries ago, no empirical generalization can be proven.

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lo_zamoyski a day ago | parent | prev [-]

> The same ideas were used to argue against stem cell research, IVF, and many other treatments and ideas that have saved and helped lives.

You write as if objections to (certain kinds of) stem cell research, IVF, etc. have been roundly defeated in some way simply because they've "saved and helped lives". This is naked utilitarianism and I hope I don't have to rehearse the reasons why utilitarianism fails utterly as moral theory.