askchapo

regardless of whether the universe is deterministic or not, it is quite interesting that we have a first-person perspective at all, instead of mindlessly/unconsciously computing like we presume a pocket calculator does. if not sentience, what's the difference between our brains and a rock or a cloud that produces this first-person experience of our conscious existence? should i stop using my computer on the off chance it is suffering every time i make it do something? should i care as little or as much about human suffering as i do a computer returning an error code? are other people merely physical objects for me to remorselessly manipulate with no confounding 'sentience' or 'conscious experience' for me to worry about upsetting, just 'biological code' returning error messages?