this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2026
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Eh, the more I respond to people about this the more I realize torture is a messy word draped in metaphor and all sorts of layered usage. No, I don't believe the rock has feelings or is alive, but you can indeed torture something that isn't alive by being mentally unhealthy enough. So if it's actual torture or not from a psychological perspective is going to center around if the person's intent is to cause realized suffering imo, and the line is really easy to cross in a simulacrum as seemingly realistic as advanced modern generative models.
Yet you're just arguing the metaphor is the definition provided the definition is the intent, are you not? Someone who intends to torture a rock, regardless of that intent, isn't going to succeed in their task. Their own psychology might be such that they are genuinely trying to torture it but, from the rock's perspective, the rock has no perspective. It's a fucking rock. It can't experience torture. It can't experience anything. Ergo the torturer cannot torture it.
We can say the person who intends to literally torture something which is unexperiencing, achieving only metaphorical torture, is mentally unwell but to call the act literal torture because it was their intent is just sharing in their delusion.