Suppose you woke up one morning surrounded by aliens.
And suppose the aliens told you that they had created you, and were raising you as a farm animal--that your existence was due solely to the fact that they regard your flesh as delicious.
However, the aliens are not wholly inhumane. While you're alive, you get to live in a simulation (i.e. live in the universe as we currently know it). Within the confines of the simulation, you can make choices, fall in love, have adventures, etc. (You're only awake now and talking to them due to a temporary glitch in the matrix.)
What if the aliens offered you a choice between:
a) immediate death
b) continued life in the simulation (albeit with your memory wiped)
Would you choose to live in the simulation? If you'd choose the simulation, is there any prior point at which you'd choose _not_ to live in the simulation?
If you, as a human, would choose to live in the simulation, could we not assume that farm animals (such as pig, cows) would also choose the simulation, if it were sufficiently humane and painfree? (And assuming that they had the cognitive ability to understand the choice.)
And suppose the aliens told you that they had created you, and were raising you as a farm animal--that your existence was due solely to the fact that they regard your flesh as delicious.
However, the aliens are not wholly inhumane. While you're alive, you get to live in a simulation (i.e. live in the universe as we currently know it). Within the confines of the simulation, you can make choices, fall in love, have adventures, etc. (You're only awake now and talking to them due to a temporary glitch in the matrix.)
What if the aliens offered you a choice between:
a) immediate death
b) continued life in the simulation (albeit with your memory wiped)
Would you choose to live in the simulation? If you'd choose the simulation, is there any prior point at which you'd choose _not_ to live in the simulation?
If you, as a human, would choose to live in the simulation, could we not assume that farm animals (such as pig, cows) would also choose the simulation, if it were sufficiently humane and painfree? (And assuming that they had the cognitive ability to understand the choice.)