“… a crazy-sounding belief of mine that our physical world not only is described by mathematics, but that it is mathematics, making us self-aware parts of a giant mathematical object […] If my life as a physicist has taught me anything at all, it’s that Plato was right: modern physics has made abundantly clear that the ultimate nature of reality isn’t what it seems.” -Max Tegmark, Professor of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Our Mathematical Universe, My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality, Vintage Books, 2014, pp.6,8.
What is “Sentience Platonism“[1]?
Sentience Platonism is the idea that experiences exist by themselves, regardless of the sentient beings who experience them.
How can that be possible?
Our minds could be like radio receivers[2] capable of connecting some “station”. The mind, as the radio-receiver, does not generate anything new, but connects to something that preexists.
That is, all the possible ingredients or aspects of all the types of experience that we know exist permanently in a certain Platonic world, as if they were radio stations. The mind, according to its state, is connected to a different combination of emitters of experiences. The mind does not generate the experience, but connects to it.
Can you explain it in another way?
Like position and age, our experiences (fear or orgasm) could be referenced to an axis (a platonic axis, or several platonic axes), as happens with space or time.
Each thing that we experience could not be our intrinsic properties, but the result of a set of values in dimensions alien to us, so that sentient experiences could exist even without beings experiencing them, in the same way that positions in time and space could exist without objects in those positions.
In a metaphor with chess pieces, the color of the piece or its shape could be considered intrinsic properties, while the position of the piece would be considered a value in one dimension.
Two chess pieces can be in row 3. “Row 3” (toothache) looks like a property of the piece, like color, and yet it is something that exists independently of the chess piece, and regardless of how many pieces are in that row (of how many beings exist experiencing this sensation).
Is it compatible with emergentism?
No, it’s just the opposite. The “radio receivers” metaphor represents a type of immersionism.
What the hell is immersionism [3]?
Immersionism is the symmetrical hypothesis of emergentism.
Is it compatible with the simulation hypothesis [4]?
Yes. Sentience Platonism can be reinforced by the idea that perhaps we live in a simulation and beings may be “instantiated” from an ideal object, in the same way as “instances” of software objects in “Object-Oriented Programming“.
Which are the implications of “Sentience Platonism” on reducing suffering [5]?
They are huge!
In Sentience Platonism we can consider at least three possibilities:
– Cookie-making mold:
– Radio station
– Purchase agreement
Whaaaat?
– Cookie-making mold: a single Platonic experience can generate multiple independent conventional experiences, which exist by themselves, disconnected from the Platonic experience that generated them, in the same way that a cookie-making mold.
– Radio station: the Platonic experience generates multiple experiences that are totally dependent of the Platonic experience, for being permanently “connected” to the Platonic experience, in the same way as a radio station.
– Purchase agreement: all the experiences produced from the Platonic experience of a certain type are ultimately the same experience, essentially the same, the same thing (all of them, both individual experiences and platonic experience), as happens for example when a deal is closed, in relation to the written copies of that agreement. There may be as many copies of the contract as we want, but the agreement will be unique.
The implications of each modality of Sentience Platonism in the alleviation and prevention of suffering are the following:
– “Cookie mold”. By eliminating a “cookie mold” from a negative experience we can avoid generating this negative experience in the future. But in order to help the beings that currently experience negative experiences, which have previously been generated by this “mold”, we must work to help these beings, one by one. This type of Sentience Platonism recalls a situation that is not metaphorical but real: genetic patterns are a kind of “cookie mold” that generates beings and therefore experiences of a certain type. By controlling and modifying genetic patterns we could avoid suffering in the future, as proposed by David Pearce.
– “Radio transmitter”. In this case, turning off the radio station that generates the negative experience will avoid this negative experience in all beings. The great advantage is that if we can access the station, it will not be necessary to intervene helping individual beings one by one. Simply turn off the station (or change the song it emits) and the effect will be immediate, in all beings.
– “Sales agreement”. The implications of this type of Sentience Platonism are overwhelming. This would imply that the total sentience of the universe remains constant, and that by helping an individual being who has a negative experience we would not be essentially doing anything, we would only do it apparently. If this hypothesis were true, the only effective way to alleviate suffering would be to eliminate or modify the Platonic ideal of such suffering. Instead, and in an optimistic sense, if there were any way to eliminate the suffering of the past it would be under a paradigm like this.
Reducing the suffering of the past is a little less implausible that it sounds. Under eternalism [6], past experiences are as real as present experiences. The bad news is that under this approach, past suffering experiences are real, like if they were happening now. The good news is that if they are real, we can act on them.
[1] https://manuherran.com/sentience-platonism/
[2] https://manuherran.com/the-radio-metaphor-explanation-in-the-description-of-reality-and-subjectivity/
[3] https://manuherran.com/symmetry-between-emergentism-and-immersionism/
[4] https://www.simulation-argument.com/
[5] https://manuherran.com/implications-of-a-plausible-sentience-platonism-in-the-prevention-of-suffering/
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternalism_(philosophy_of_time)
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