scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/4yz5zi.md

## Unsong: Chapter 34: WHY WILT THOU REND THYSELF APART, JERUSALEM?

* Author: u/brocht *
* URL: http://unsongbook.com/chapter-34-why-wilt-thou-rend-thyself-apart-jerusalem/
* Score: 61

* Created: 2016-08-22T06:00:46

### Post:

[Link to content](http://unsongbook.com/chapter-34-why-wilt-thou-rend-thyself-apart-jerusalem/)

### Comments:

> **u/over_who** [+34]  *Aleph you are going to die* (an hour later)
> 
> Despite what appears to be a majority opinion that chapters like this make the story too slow, these world building chapters are inevitably my favorite. This is in large part because they are always carefully constructed to support jokes and clever connections in addition to interesting worldbuilding. Today's installment was no exception. I hope to see many more in the future.

>> **u/LiteralHeadCannon** [+21]  (2 hours later)
>> 
>> Scott referred to this as a dull expository chapter, but I have no idea how.  This is one of the tensest and most stunning chapters of the story so far.

>>> **u/ScottAlexander** [+16]  (20 hours later)
>>> 
>>> This wasn't the chapter I was originally planning to post today, but since I was in California and seeing a lot of Unsong readers I figured I should give them something interesting so we could have something to talk about.
>>> 
>>> You'll get your regular dose of dull exposition back next week.

>> **u/duskulldoll** [+7]  (8 hours later)
>> 
>> Yeah, this is probably my favourite chapter so far. Unsong's world is so utterly, wonderfully original.

>>> **u/frontenac_brontenac** [+1]  (7 years later)
>>> 
>>> It was rewritten for the paper edition :( lost a lot in the process, including "aleph you are going to die".

>> **u/Darth_Hobbes** [+7]  *Ankh-Morpork Guild of Assassins* (16 hours later)
>> 
>> I agree, but only with the caveat that the main plot ends up having enough content once it really gets going. It'd be a shame to build this huge world and then have Aaron and Ana's adventure in it only be the length of a novella.

>>> **u/over_who** [+9]  *Aleph you are going to die* (17 hours later)
>>> 
>>> Honestly, while I enjoy the main plot, if the entire story was witty vignettes similar to this chapter, with only minor plot continuity and fun character development, I don't know how much I'd mind.

>>> **u/monkyyy0** [+1]  (19 hours later)
>>> 
>>> They havn't even dismounted/joined unsong yet or defeated hell

>> **u/RMcD94** [+2]  (17 hours later)
>> 
>> I definitely haven't seen any indication on this subreddit that that's the majority opinion. I remember one discussion on the comment threads regarding people's preference for advancing the plot versus the sidestory-esque chapters but there was no clear majority.

> **u/Lord_Drol** [+28]  *NERV* (50 minutes later)
> 
> And now *that* is the real reason why the theonomic corporations don't sell the Fertile Name to Ethiopia in order to cure hunger. The Ethiopians don't have souls, so they can't use Names!

>> **u/___ratanon___** [+6]  *Holy, holy is the lord of /etc/hosts* (4 hours later)
>> 
>> They could write the Name on a piece of paper, which Ethiopians would then tear up. [That should work.](/r/unsong/comments/4h7hcp/names/d2q5hnj)

>>> **u/electrace** [+8]  (14 hours later)
>>> 
>>> Unless tearing it up only works if you have a soul.
>>> 
>>> Plus, there's no reason to give them the name in the first place; they aren't actually experiencing any suffering due to the lack of souls in this story, so there's no moral imperative to make sure that they don't starve.

>>>> **u/bassicallyboss** [+2]  (15 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> If it's easy to do, though, it would still be good for public opinion.

> **u/SvalbardCaretaker** [+17]  *Mouse Army* (3 hours later)
> 
> He Uriel, just wanted to let you know that apart from the tragedy that followed your joke was hilarious.

>> **u/RMcD94** [+8]  (4 hours later)
>> 
>> What's a couple of million lives for a good joke

>>> **u/SvalbardCaretaker** [+13]  *Mouse Army* (5 hours later)
>>> 
>>> At least 20 or so of them didnt have souls, so its fine.

>> **u/Fredlage** [+3]  (5 hours later)
>> 
>> Best knock knock joke ever

> **u/Arancaytar** [+11]  (8 hours later)
> 
> From what Uriel says, it's basically impossible (for normal humans) to distinguish a person from a p-zombie. Other than, maybe, if they use a Name and it doesn't work. And according to Uriel, such a p-zombie would emphatically insist on having a soul and even exhibit existential dread at finding out otherwise, but not actually be conscious.
> 
> *shudder*
> 
> Should p-zombies have human rights? Assuming that you can experimentally verify somebody not having a soul, and you have an archangel's word for them not having conscious experience but being complex automatons, should you value them the same as a human with a soul? How would this affect the Trolley Problem?
> 
> *more shudder*

>> **u/None** [+7]  (15 hours later)
>> 
>> [removed]

>>> **u/None** [+9]  (17 hours later)
>>> 
>>> [deleted]

>>>> **u/creatureofthewood** [+2]  (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> (Good) moral philosophy is an attempt to describe the internal preference function and does not respond to external evidence. Either souls are necessary in order to morally matter, or souls aren't necessarily in order to matter. Whether or not souls exist is irrelevant to moral philosophy -  if they don't exist and you believe they are necessary than you have to admit you live in an empty world. If they do exist and you believe they aren't necessarily before, learning of their existence doesn't change anything.

>>>>> **u/NoYouTryAnother** [+1]  (a day later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> I'm really confused as to what your point is. Let me clarify what I said and see if you still have an objection.
>>>>> 
>>>>> >Maybe your moral philosophy differs vastly from mine, but if objective knowledge of who has souls is available in world, whyever would you grant the soulless rights?
>>>>> 
>>>>> followed 
>>>>> 
>>>>> > the soulless in Unsong do not experience existence. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> If your moral philosophy entails that suffering is bad, and that suffering is only a possible state of  "entities" which "experience things", then objective knowledge that the soulless do not experience anything and thus cannot suffer is relevant to your application of that philosophy.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Of course, /u/appropriate-username claims that indeed, the subject matter of morality to him deals fundamentally with living* things, such as, I presume, the  computers used in computer-factories iff connected to the internet for signalling and installed with auto-updating quality anti-virus software, or Mother Gaia ... so long as one properly interprets "cells", I suppose. Or perhaps this whole debate confuses me.
>>>>> 
>>>>> *living:
>>>>> > having biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, .... organisms maintain homeostasis, are composed of cells, undergo metabolism, can grow, adapt to their environment, respond to stimuli, and reproduce

>>>>>> **u/creatureofthewood** [+3]  (a day later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Ah, I guess I'll go with "moral philosophy is vastly different" then: my moral philosophy doesn't have "qualia" as a factor to whether a being is morally relevant because I've already determined that it's incoherent (in all possible universes) to speak of qualia other than to refer to your own self as the experiencer of things, and whatever Uriel may believe retracting a soul eliminates, it's not eliminating that which matters in my moral philosophy. 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> As in, if the real me was this story observing events as they unfold and knowing everything the reader knows, I'd still believe Uriel was either philosophically mistaken about what counts as a person  (he's not infallible) or had a morality not perfectly aligned to mine. Even if the sky cracked and a bunch of propositions I previously believed required questioning, that belief wouldn't be one of them. At least not enough to play it safe and give rights to the behaviorally conscious.

>>>>>>> **u/NoYouTryAnother** [+2]  (a day later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I agree at the pragmatic level that treating those Uriel claims do not have souls as beings(non-beings?) with zero moral value would be a mistake, even if one's own understanding of the way things work suggests that should be the case. Unless you're Uriel yourself, there is always the possibility of being mistaken about what Uriel meant. 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> With objective knowledge about the metaphysics of the universe, the issue of soulless' rights doesn't seem complicated to me, but any given individual in-universe is going to lack that important piece of objective knowledge. So I guess there's an important distinction of the issue from the viewpoint of the reader who has this knowledge, and the individuals in-story who do not.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Certainly in the real world, time and again whole swathes of the population have been dehumanized and abused by others, so we know it is a real risk not to have in place a default policy of humanizing others.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> The rarest stance in the world seems to be one of "I don't know."

>>>>>>>> **u/creatureofthewood** [+1]  (a day later)
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> I'm making a bolder statement than that actually: I mean even if we in principle know *exactly* what *Uriel* means, he's still probably wrong. Uriel does not understand humans and human values, this is canonically well established.  An algorithm which behaves consciously is *self evidently, tautologically* conscious and there is no such thing as evidence that can contradict that even in principle. Philosophical zombies *can't* exist, any more than 2=3, without switching definitions around.

>>>>>>>>> **u/NoYouTryAnother** [+1]  (a day later)
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> I wasn't clear on you being of the anti-philosophical zombie bent, but I figured that what I wrote was not quite what you believed. I do think it is the extent of overlap in what we'd agree to though.
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> I personally am of the strong opinion that there is no such thing as a consistent "strictly materialist" stance which believes the universe is governed by certain physical/metaphysical laws and that those laws do not directly have anything to say about consciousness. In other words, I do not believe that the whole "consciousness is an emergent property of matter" shtick is sound. It'd be a long post or two to get into that so I won't here. 
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Unfortunately there's nothing I can do for those unwilling to admit to the meaningfulness of consciousness as a concept outside of working definitions.
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> I'd argue with your definition insofar as it's not the thing we usually refer to when we talk about consciousness, except my stance is that you can't define consciousness anymore than you can define the epiphenomena we associate with "volume" or "the passage of time", or better yet, the idea of "physical existence" itself. (With access to the mathematics/physical law we attach to the associated physical phenomena you can talk about the abstraction, but the idea that some tree or electron or ensemble of particles composing the sun "exists" is a completely different notion of "existence" than that used in mathematics, and I do not believe it to be formalizeable. Without formalizeability, you don't have definitions. And in the case of consciousness, we don't even have whatever physical law it presumably obeys, so discussion outside of presupposing that consciousness is a thing, like volume, and aside from being part of the rules of the universe it further has a certain physically semantic interpretation, like volume, is difficult.)
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> If you'll give me that consciousness like the inner-thing we conscious beings experience is some actual meaningful-though-not-definable thing itself, and suppose in the usual modern way that it is governed by some physical laws which are expressible via mathematics, then I'd say that the point of philosophical zombies is in the claimed *non-(mathematical)uniqueness* of the universes' interpreter which reads off the particles/whatnot obeying those equations, and which says that there will be consciousness expressed in this particular way, or even that consciousness is physically realized, as opposed to, say, the case of the phase of the wave equation (which is not). Or shorter, that it is not mathematically or logically necessary that a given consistent set of symbols possess one semantics over another, and the mystery is that the universe chose this particular one. Syntatics does not imply a unique semantics. Which is all just a fancy way of saying and justifying that under these assumptions, the *experience* of consciousness is entirely independent of anything external or measurable, and even more strongly, its "existence" is logically independent of the rest of the set up. But I recognize that it is consistent of you not to grant nearly so many assumptions about things.

>>>>>>>>>> **u/creatureofthewood** [+1]  (a day later)
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> The experience of consciousness is that by which "you" have access to things which are external or measurable in the first place. It's not "independent" of those things at all! No subjective consciousness = no one there to take the "objective" measurement. 
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> The fact that consciousness is the thing by which we measure stuff like a fairly clear bridge between consciousness and measurable stuff right? (don't worries about the subject of other people's qualia yet, just assume solopsism for now)

>>>>>>>>>>> **u/NoYouTryAnother** [+1]  (2 days later)
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> >The fact that consciousness is the thing by which we measure stuff like a fairly clear bridge between consciousness and measurable stuff right?
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> Is it? It's not even controversial to claim that there is no way to prove anyone else is "conscious" (i.e. to *disprove* solipsism). The best we could ever hope to do is to understand reality so well that we can describe what kinds of physical interactions result in the physical state which we hypothesize is behind a conscious being's existing as a conscious being. And that's assuming that there is such a thing. Maybe all matter is "conscious", but most lives a very boring, mindless, memoryless, senseless life.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> This is the fundamental point of difference. I am claiming a distinction between the underlying "syntactics", the abstract rules describing what is going on physically, and the way they are "realized" in the universe ("semantics", I'll refer to it as). 
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> To avoid confusion more than that it's necessarily natural to say here, my viewpoint will jettison free-will, various aspects of identity such as a link between your "thoughts" and the thing doing the observing (i.e. that minds != consciousness), etc. Not that I am particular attached to abandoning these things or happen to know that it is necessary, but they appear problematic and are beside the main thesis.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> Given that context. Our conscious experience seems like it interacts, but it is a mainstream observation that the outside world gets no information about whether I am "conscious" or not.  The presence of "consciousness", in this sense, does appear to be "independent" of what's going on outside. Is a "consciousness", whatever that is, *impacted* by what's going on outside? Maybe, but as I said, I think it's a mistake to conflate a "mind" that has thoughts with the "consciousness" that hears them. Maybe in the grand unified viewpoint these two concepts are equivalent, but then that's some theorem nobody's yet written the definitions to even state. So maybe not.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> Now the prevalent materialist view is that consciousness is an "emergent property of matter", whatever that means. End of mystery. But my claim is that it is not a mathematical necessity that the rest of the abstract "rules" of matter and their semantics within the universe - physics - should entail that consciousness as the thing I claim I have should accompany the rest of physics. "It's an emergent property of ~~matter~~the rest of physics" is just false. Syntactics does not imply semantics. Absent a bate-and-switch, consciousness as I experience it is not *by necessity* the consequence of having "matter" obeying the other laws of physics, even if that is the way that it happens to play out in this reality. That the particles moving the way they move should *mean* that I have consciousness rather than merely instantiating a false shell which interfaces with everything else as though there were is the question at hand, and the source of all dualism.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> Maybe the stuff which makes up reality has some rule about consciousness attached to it and is fundamental in some way that it wouldn't make sense to talk about other realities existing which weren't made of that very same stuff with that very same rule ... but this is far away from a discussion of what the physics entails, and into metaphysics, and ultimately sounds like an explanation by fiat - matter has consciousness because matter has consciousness. *-- Alright, but why?* Or at the very least, *-- well isn't that interesting?* Certainly not "well it all makes sense consciousness is an emergent property and consciousness is just an illusion, man," which, sadly, seems also to be the prevalent mainstream viewpoint.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> This isn't any greater mystery than any other metaphysics. But, the mysteries of metaphysics are the greatest mysteries of all.

>>>>>>>>>>>> **u/creatureofthewood** [+1]  (3 days later)
>>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>>> I think you are thinking backwards. 
>>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>>> Not everything has an explanation rooted in something else. At bottom, some things are *given*.There are axioms you assume, and then move forward from there. Your perceptions are sort of like an axiomatic starting point. You logically figure out what the physical laws of the universe you live in are from that axiomatic starting point. It's hard to explain but the question you are posing, "why do we have perceptions in the first place", isn't sensible. It's like I'm saying 1+1=2, and you're asking "why is there a 1+1". 
>>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>>> Also when we say consciousness emerges from matter, we're talking about conscious behavior, not qualia. Qualia doesn't emerge from anything, it's the starting point from which other constructs emerge.

>>>>>>>>>>>>> **u/NoYouTryAnother** [+1]  (3 days later)
>>>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>>>> >Your perceptions are sort of like an axiomatic starting point. 
>>>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>>>> That's fine if you're doing bookkeeping about your reasoning peocess, but that isn't correct as a statement about the nature of the universe. I do suppose that facts and reality are meaningful outside of whether or not I exist. I'm not too concerned with working definitions, no matter how useful or necesaary.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>> **u/creatureofthewood** [+1]  (3 days later)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Why? The only thing which distinguishes this reality from the multiverse of mathematical possibilities is that you exist in it.  If you didn't exist in it, who would even be there to suppose about whether it was meaningful?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> **u/NoYouTryAnother** [+1]  (3 days later)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Because my best understanding of reality is that if various quantum measurements had resolved differently, I wouldn't exist at all in it, and that that doesn't change anything about the fundamental truths of the universe. Even that aside, since I haven't always existed and the universe has(*), whatever those truths are, their axioms cannot include that I exist.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>  I think we may be quibbling over what constitutes "the nature of the universe." If not though, then I think it's the difference between what the starting points are for assembling evidence for one theory about things, versus what that theory happens to be. For the former, yes my existence is a basic component. For the latter, it is not (though the existence of consciousness as a phenomena is made part of its subject matter).
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> *-ish

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> **u/NoYouTryAnother** [+1]  (3 days later)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Double posting rather than editing since this is a separate thought and better direction for the conversation: Between 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >  At bottom, some things are given.There are axioms you assume, and then move forward from there. 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >I've already determined that it's incoherent (in all possible universes) to speak of qualia other than to refer to your own self as the experiencer of things
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I get the feeling that you're a lot closer to a positivist or a very strict empiricist than a typical reductionist, in which case I should phrase things differently. Are you?

>>>> **u/RMcD94** [+1]  (2 days later)
>>>> 
>>>> Non-human animal abuse laws haven't been rescinded in this universe right? You'd obviously start there before getting to humans. 
>>>> 
>>>> It seems like experiencing pain may not be an issue just reacting to pain is.

>>>> **u/None** [+1]  (18 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> [removed]

>>>>> **u/NoYouTryAnother** [+6]  (18 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> You're using a meaningless word "alive" here. I'm sure there's a great link on LessWrong for using words which aren't the referents for anything.
>>>>> 
>>>>> In-universe, one doesn't have to use nebulous terms such as "alive", since the mystery of consciousness is solved - it's a physically/metaphysically colloquial-use!logically independent of everything else presence of a "soul." In Unsong, conciousness is something with a real metaphysical existence, and it does not exist in the soulless.
>>>>> 
>>>>> In the real world, you are not concerned with the well-being of rocks. I am fairly confidant making this assumption about you. Let me further assume that you are typical enough that one of the reasons that the suffering of abused animals weighs on you more than the rocks ground for ore is that, in real life, you do not believe that rocks experience anything at all, so there is no "suffering" to be concerned about. In Unsong, ... well, you fill in the blank. I feel like I'm using a lot of words in a hopeless attempt to try to attack a basic difference in both priors and methods of reasoning, so I'll just shut up now.

>>>>>> **u/None** [+2]  (18 hours later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> [removed]

>>>>>>> **u/LiteralHeadCannon** [+6]  (18 hours later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Are all things meeting this definition of life morally relevant?  I think you're equivocating between multiple definitions of "alive".

>>>>>>>> **u/None** [+1]  (18 hours later)
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> [removed]

>>>>>>>>> **u/LiteralHeadCannon** [+8]  (19 hours later)
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Even down to microorganisms?  Wow.  I respect your consistency, but that's a pretty uncommon position, I think.  Would you consider a human-level artificial intelligence morally irrelevant?

>>> **u/Darth_Hobbes** [+5]  *Ankh-Morpork Guild of Assassins* (18 hours later)
>>> 
>>> In the context of the story, it's clear that Uriel operates on a level that is actualy beyond human comprehension. He's essentially the only person on the planet qualified to speak on the matter, so his word can be taken as the next best thing to the word of god. So if Uriel says that consciousness is non-material and certain people aren't actually conscious and have no moral value, that deserves some serious consideration whether it fits with our understanding of neuroscience or not.
>>> 
>>> Or perhaps more credibly, if Thamiel lacks any desire to torture p-zombies then that's some damn good evidence p-zombies don't have any genuince capacity for suffering. Of course, that's if Thamiel isn't just acting that way to inflame racism.

>>>> **u/creatureofthewood** [+3]  (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> I think a more sensible interpretation is that the angelic utility function treats souls differently from the human one, at least that is how angels think before angels acquire whatever cynical knowledge causes them to become fallen angels (which, note, Uriel is not as yet). 
>>>> 
>>>> Thamiel's utility function is inverse of the angelic ones, so his not caring about souls means either he really doesn't care about the soulless just as angels don't, or he too doesn't realize the philosophical issue. 
>>>> 
>>>> The human response to this would be to remove their souls so Thamiel doesn't take them (although it then turns into Thamiel's interest to take them regardless for game theory reasons)

>>>> **u/Bowbreaker** [+2]  *Solitary Locust* (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> Wasn't every human essentially soulless up till the crystal sphere got cracked? Or did I misunderstand that?

>>>>> **u/bassicallyboss** [+2]  (a day later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> As I understand it, humans had souls, but the divine light entering the world was blocked off.  So humans pre-crack had some of the current benefits of having a soul (e.g., conscious experience, afterlife) but not anything that required divine light to work properly (e.g., the use of Names).

>>>> **u/None** [+1]  (18 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> [removed]

>>>>> **u/Darth_Hobbes** [+4]  *Ankh-Morpork Guild of Assassins* (18 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> I meant hypothetically. More likely that the issue doesn't arise again.

>> **u/CreationBlues** [+7]  (21 hours later)
>> 
>> Actually, I think this whole p-zombie thing is entirely missing the point. in my opinion, souls and consciousness are orthogonal qualities: someone can have a soul and not be conscious, and someone can have no soul and be conscious. This is based on the fact that a soul is completely optional, and whether you have one can change over your lifetime, apparently with no observable side effects.
>> 
>> I think that having a soul is sort of like having the right to vote. You still exist independent of your rights, but when you have them the world tends to work differently for you. In this case, having a soul lets you use names, let's you move on to heaven or hell, and plugs you in to the api holy beings like angels and Uriel have access to, which tracks suffering, happyness, sin, etc.
>> 
>> It has to be emphasized that you exist independently of this system. Even if it does noticeably change your behavior, it would just be added to a massive list of environmental variables that control you, including things like sun exposure, air quality, exposure to nature in your enviroment, trace minerals such as lithium or lead in your enviroment, smog, pollution, food quality, etc etc etc etc.

>>> **u/bassicallyboss** [+1]  (2 days later)
>>> 
>>> It's not missing the point.  It may well be the case that in real life, consciousness can occur in animals or machines or other entities purely as a consequence of how they are built.  You are conscious, in other words, because you have a brain organized in such a way that it hosts consciousness.  (Call this the view that consciousness is a physical property of systems.)  If you then further suppose that souls exist, then you're right:  Whether you have a soul, given that consciousness is physical property, has no bearing on whether you have consciousness.
>>> 
>>> However, if you believe that consciousness is something that ensouled beings have and non-ensouled beings lack--no matter how much they insist they experience things and no matter that their brains seem to light up in the same places under an MRI under the same conditions as to an ensouled being's--then the talk about p-zombies is terribly relevant.
>>> 
>>> Your point seems to boil down to the fact that p-zombies don't exist; displaying the behaviors expected of conscious beings is identical to being conscious.  That may well be the case in real life--I happen to believe it is.  There is little evidence for the existence of souls, so if we are to conclude that we ourselves are conscious, we must conclude that consciousness is possible without souls.  However, in Unsong, souls do exist.  They seem to be very important, they possibly have a place in some Divine Plan, and the Archangel Uriel (who is more knowledgeable about these things than most) says that beings without souls don't suffer, even when they appear to, and accuses several apparently normal humans of lacking souls.  This seems like strong evidence that p-zombies do exist in Unsong.
>>> 
>>> It may turn out that Uriel is wrong in this case.  He is bad at understanding humans, sometimes.  But the rules in Unsong are different than those in real life, and it might be (and seems to be) the case in the story that physical mechanisms are not sufficient to produce conscious experience, and no soul = no consciousness.

>>>> **u/RMcD94** [+1]  (2 days later)
>>>> 
>>>> Even if that was the case, we already knew most creatures didn't have souls in this universe but as far as I'm aware no one has rescinded animal abuse laws. It seems like pain is something to avoid whether or not the creatures are conscious.

>>>>> **u/bassicallyboss** [+1]  (2 days later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Well, pain is just feedback.  It's your body's way of saying "don't do that" or "take it easy" or "keep this spot safe while it heals."  A p-zombie avoiding things that bring it "pain" is like Google's Go-playing neural network avoiding moves that have given it negative reinforcement values in the past.  In neither case does this feedback indicate an experience of pain, or of suffering; it only results in the outwardly observable and behavioral effects that we normally associate with such experience.  While I think that animals do experience pain in real life, it's logically necessary that they don't if they lack souls in a world where only souls experience anything.  (Which, though likely, is not really certain in Unsong yet.  Offhand, I'd put the chance that Uriel messed up and humans without souls have consciousness at ~30%.)
>>>>> 
>>>>> As for the animal abuse laws, there could be any number of reasons for that.  Maybe they have been rescinded but it wasn't worth noting.  It could be that people don't like seeing things that look like suffering but really aren't, as with watching torture in a movie.  Or, seeing the suffering-like behavior of abused animals (who aren't actually suffering) might make people less sensitive to the suffering-like behavior of abused humans (who actually are suffering), and so outlawing cruelty to animals actually decreases cruelty to humans.  Or, it could just be that people haven't thought things through, as usual.  Point is, there are valid reasons to not legalize animal abuse, even if animals have no experience, just like there are valid reasons not to legalize p-zombie murder, even though p-zombies have no consciousness.
>>>>> 
>>>>> [Edited for clarity]

>> **u/chaosmosis** [+1]  *and with strange aeons, even death may die* (22 hours later)
>> 
>> Souls do have consequences, after death. Ensouled and soulless people should be treated differently at least insofar as soulless people can't go to hell or heaven.

>>> **u/bassicallyboss** [+3]  (2 days later)
>>> 
>>> Not to mention they should treat themselves differently.  Non-ensouled people can engage in all the immoral-but-fun behavior they want, and needn't worry about suffering in hell for it.

>>>> **u/ThatDarnSJDoubleW** [+1]  (2 days later)
>>>> 
>>>> Unless that's what Thamiel wants you to think...

> **u/Sagebrysh** [+12]  *Rank 7 Pragmatist* (16 hours later)
> 
> Given the realities of the afterlife in Unsong, not having a soul might be a good thing.

> **u/ThatDarnSJDoubleW** [+9]  (13 hours later)
> 
> I think Uriel's destructiveness went from Far Mode to Near Mode for me at this point.

> **u/Charlie___** [+8]  (12 hours later)
> 
> Cease rending thyself, Jerusalem! Cease rending thyself!

> **u/abcd_z** [+8]  (14 hours later)
> 
> On the plus side, at least it appears he's gotten the hang of knock-knock jokes.

> **u/None** [+8]  (12 hours later)
> 
> [deleted]

>> **u/chaosmosis** [+3]  *and with strange aeons, even death may die* (22 hours later)
>> 
>> Optimal? If nothing else he could surely have done so in a way that improved his PR, whereas this will hurt it.

> **u/scruiser** [+7]  *CYOA* (15 hours later)
> 
> So how much was Uriel just reacting emotionally, and how much of that was a calculated attempt to stop Thamiel from achieving his goals in a brute force fashion/prevent knowledge that North Africa doesn't have souls from spreading?

> **u/Kawoomba** [+3]  (13 hours later)
> 
> Interestingly, while this chapter seems to be amongst the more controversial to date, it's also been my favorite.

> **u/MaddoScientisto** [+3]  (a day later)
> 
> You managed to make me laugh at the instant death of a whole city, this is why I continue loving this story

> **u/awesomeideas** [+1]  *Dai stiho, cousin.* (3 days later)
> 
> Well, I think we know why the name didn't work a second time on the second computer!

>> **u/Tetrikitty** [+1]  (4 days later)
>> 
>> If you're saying that the Name transferred Aaron's soul to the computer, that can't be true because Aaron subsequently used other names, and also because Ana tried ensouling the second computer too.

>>> **u/awesomeideas** [+2]  *Dai stiho, cousin.* (4 days later)
>>> 
>>> No. I'm saying that if souls are a valuable commodity, no way Uriel would let them be wasted in computers, which he is pretty sure God doesn't care about as much as humans, for some reason.

>>>> **u/Tetrikitty** [+1]  (4 days later)
>>>> 
>>>> If so, why would he let one computer be ensouled at all?

>>>>> **u/Fredlage** [+1]  (6 days later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> He probably wasn't expecting it, he is not omniscient after all.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Maybe it wasn't even him, maybe the total amount of divine light in our world just dropped bellow a certain minimum necessary for the Vital Name to work.

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