Daniel Dennett’s standard response to the question “What’s the secret of happiness” is “The secret of happiness is to find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it.”
I think that this avoids Eliezer’s criticism that “you can’t deliberately pursue ‘a purpose that takes you outside yourself’, in order to take yourself outside yourself. That’s still all about you.” Something can be more important than you and yet include you. Depending on your values, the future of the human race itself could serve as an example. It would seem also to be still an available “hedonic accessory” in any eutopia that includes humanity in some form.
Daniel Dennett’s standard response to the question “What’s the secret of happiness” is “The secret of happiness is to find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it.”
I think that this avoids Eliezer’s criticism that “you can’t deliberately pursue ‘a purpose that takes you outside yourself’, in order to take yourself outside yourself. That’s still all about you.” Something can be more important than you and yet include you. Depending on your values, the future of the human race itself could serve as an example. It would seem also to be still an available “hedonic accessory” in any eutopia that includes humanity in some form.