Tom Lehrer and the Large Hadron Collider

[umop apisdn w,I]

I had my iPod on shuffle last night on the way home from work, and it started playing some Tom Lehrer. The song "We Will All Go Together When We Go" got me thinking about the current paranoia in some quarters about the Large Hadron Collider and how it might (according to some) create a black hole and destroy the earth in seconds.

Tom Lehrer's lyrics are, as always, excellent:

When you attend a funeral,
It is sad to think that sooner or'l
Later those you love will do the same for you.
And you may have thought it tragic,
Not to mention other adjec-
Tives, to think of all the weeping they will do.
(But don't you worry.)

No more ashes, no more sackcloth,
And an arm band made of black cloth
Will some day nevermore adorn a sleeve.
For if the bomb that drops on you
Gets your friends and neighbors too,
There'll be nobody left behind to grieve.

And we will all go together when we go.
What a comforting fact that is to know.
Universal bereavement,
An inspiring achievement,
Yes, we will all go together when we go.

Lehrer was talking about nuclear weapons, but his point remains valid.

If we assume that there is no afterlife, and that death is the end of consciousness, the suffering in death is all on the part of those left behind.

So if everyone dies in an instant - leaving no-one to grieve and suffer - can this be said to be a bad thing from a moral or ethical standpoint?

Emotionally, it would seem to me that wiping out the entire planet would be very wrong - way beyond genocide. But rationally, if no-one suffers at all, where is the harm? It strikes me that in this case the emotional response to such potential death would be misplaced, and would be based on the (false in this case) inference that death involves suffering rather than on the facts.

Thoughts, anyone?

(Note: I don't for a second believe that the LHC is dangerous, so I'm not looking for a science discussion about that - I'm just using it as an example of something that would pretty much instantly wipe us out...)

[DMB]

When you think how Jahweh cocked up with the fludde, it would give him a great chance to start again and poof a new and better world into existence.

[epepke]

The thing I like about that one is "nearly three billion hunks of well done steak." It reminds me of how much the population has grown.

[Quizalufagus]

I think you're conceptualizing "suffering" too narrowly. The folks who get killed by the LHC may not experience much suffering in terms of physical pain or emotional anguish, but they still suffer in the sense that they are deprived of something that they would like to keep (their lives). Depriving the people killed of something positive is unethical even if they won't be around to feel bad about it.

[Cath B]

I was listening to We Will All Go Together on youtube a week or so ago and pondering on very similar lines to the ponderings of the OP. Started thinking about it again when the LHC hit the news bigtime.

I'm inclined to see things the way Quizalufagus does - not so much in an ethical sense (I tend to tie myself in knots when I think about ethics) than as a gut feeling. What do we have but our experiences? And that's something we're genetically programmed to value in ourselves and often in others.

[umop apisdn w,I]

I think you're conceptualizing "suffering" too narrowly. The folks who get killed by the LHC may not experience much suffering in terms of physical pain or emotional anguish, but they still suffer in the sense that they are deprived of something that they would like to keep (their lives). Depriving the people killed of something positive is unethical even if they won't be around to feel bad about it.

But they aren't being deprived of anything.

To be deprived of something, there needs to be a time when you don't have it.

If people are instantaneously (or at least so quickly that their nervous system does not have time to register the event happening) destroyed, there is no time at which they do not have the thing they would like to keep (in this case, their lives).

[JamesBannon]

The amount of suffering doesn't really matter here, it's still mass genocide.

[Quizalufagus]

But they aren't being deprived of anything.

To be deprived of something, there needs to be a time when you don't have it.

If people are instantaneously (or at least so quickly that their nervous system does not have time to register the event happening) destroyed, there is no time at which they do not have the thing they would like to keep (in this case, their lives).

You're employing a pretty weird definition of "deprived".

[dug_down_deep]

I am entitled to my rights in the future as well as in the present.

Example: In twenty minutes I will shoot you. Do you have a right to self-defense until I pull the trigger?

[Columbus]

I am entitled to my rights in the future as well as in the present.
You have no rights unless you are alive. If the world suddenly collapses into a black-hole, then the term "in the future" ceases to have any meaning for you or anyone. No-one is being deprived of anything. The future that they anticipated does not exist. Wishing for, or expecting, something is not the same as having a right to it.


Example: In twenty minutes I will shoot you. Do you have a right to self-defense until I pull the trigger?
Yes, until you pull the trigger. After that I don't have any rights to anything, because I don't exist. My survivors have rights, and the State has rights, but I do not have rights since I do not exist any more. A human's right to self-defense ends at death.
Unless, of course, you are a theist of some sort. Where death is not really death.
Tom

[Quizalufagus]

"Rights" is a very muddy term. Natural rights almost certainly don't exist. However, by our social conventions people (or at least people who aren't criminals) have the right not to lose their lives irrespective of how little pain they go through, and we agree that causing people to lose their lives is unethical irrespective of how painless death can be made.

[SMS]

Dean is mentioning an age old problem of death. If no one suffers from the death, then what's the big deal? You cannot fear nothing because death is the end of fear. Usually philosophers say something along the lines of because it deprives a future.

[Jet Black]

I am entitled to my rights in the future as well as in the present.


but if you fall into a black hole, then the future is the arrival at the singularity. There is no other future and there's no after. That is the end.

[dug_down_deep]

I am entitled to my rights in the future as well as in the present.
You have no rights unless you are alive. If the world suddenly collapses into a black-hole, then the term "in the future" ceases to have any meaning for you or anyone. No-one is being deprived of anything. The future that they anticipated does not exist. Wishing for, or expecting, something is not the same as having a right to it.
This is a false view of what rights are. My evidence? That penal and civil codes always take the view that one has been deprived of their life, and deserves redress, through the proxy of their estate.

Example: In twenty minutes I will shoot you. Do you have a right to self-defense until I pull the trigger?Yes, until you pull the trigger. After that I don't have any rights to anything, because I don't exist. My survivors have rights, and the State has rights, but I do not have rights since I do not exist any more. A human's right to self-defense ends at death.
Unless, of course, you are a theist of some sort. Where death is not really death.
Tom

My point (I think -- my last post was 3 weeks ago :P ) was that if you do not take the imminent death into account, then self-defense makes no sense in that context. Why should you defend yourself against something that will, due to your death, not be an injury against you?

This is silly. It's like I'm debating with a Lewis Carroll story. :p

[dug_down_deep]

I am entitled to my rights in the future as well as in the present.


but if you fall into a black hole, then the future is the arrival at the singularity. There is no other future and there's no after. That is the end.
There is no better way to mystify a discussion than by introducing the singularity concept. I quit. :D

[GenesisNemesis]

but if you fall into a black hole, then the future is the arrival at the singularity. There is no other future and there's no after. That is the end.

Now, how do you know that? ;)