As a materialist, I tend to believe the answer derives from the character of our social interactions with the 'something' in question. The number of neurons/parameters tends to correlate with the complexity of social behavior, but it fails at serving as a true threshold. This is more an empirically generated belief than the result of pure thought. We tend to attach welfare worth to 'somethings' we can interact socially with, perhaps as a result of thousands of years of evolution that forced us into socializing to survive.
Not much debate exists around the welfare worth of rocks. Perhaps shrimp deserves a consideration, but I am not surprised if the consensus weights toward no... (read more)
As a materialist, I tend to believe the answer derives from the character of our social interactions with the 'something' in question. The number of neurons/parameters tends to correlate with the complexity of social behavior, but it fails at serving as a true threshold. This is more an empirically generated belief than the result of pure thought. We tend to attach welfare worth to 'somethings' we can interact socially with, perhaps as a result of thousands of years of evolution that forced us into socializing to survive.
Not much debate exists around the welfare worth of rocks. Perhaps shrimp deserves a consideration, but I am not surprised if the consensus weights toward no... (read more)