Incidentally, it is currently possible to achieve total happiness, or perhaps a close approximation. A carefully implanted electrode to the right part of the brain, will be more desirable than food to a starving rat, for example. While this part of the brain is called the “pleasure center”, it might rather be about desire and reward instead. Nevertheless, pleasure and happiness are by necessity mental states, and it should be possible to artificially create these.
Why should a man who is perfectly content, bother to get up to eat, or perhaps achieve something? He may starve to death, but would be happy to do so. And such a man will be content with his current state, which of course is contentment, and not at all resent his current state. Even a less invasive case, where a man is given almost everything he wants, yet not so much so that he does not eventually become dissatisfied with the amount of food in his belly and decide to put more in, even so there will be higher level motivations this man will lose.
While I consider myself a utilitarian, and believe the best choices are those that maximize the values of everyone, I cannot agree with the above situation. For now, this is no problem because people in their current state would not choose to artificially fulfill their desires via electrode implants, nor is it yet possible to actually fulfill everyone’s desires in the real world. I shall now go and rethink why I choose a certain path, if I cannot abide reaching the destination.
First, let me congratulate you on stopping to rethink when you realize that you’ve found a seeming contradiction in your own thinking. Most people aren’t able to see the contradictions in their beliefs, and when/if they do, they fail to actually do anything about them.
While it is theoretically possible to artificially create pleasure and happiness (which, around here, we call wirehading), converting the entire observable universe to orgasmium (maximum pleasure experiencing substance) seems to go a bit beyond that. In general, I think you’ll find most people around here are against both, even though they’d call themselves “utilitarians” or similar. This is because there’s more than one form of utilitarianism; many Less Wrongers believe other forms, like preference utilitarianism are correct, instead of the original Millsian hedonistic utilitarianism.
Incidentally, it is currently possible to achieve total happiness, or perhaps a close approximation. A carefully implanted electrode to the right part of the brain, will be more desirable than food to a starving rat, for example. While this part of the brain is called the “pleasure center”, it might rather be about desire and reward instead. Nevertheless, pleasure and happiness are by necessity mental states, and it should be possible to artificially create these.
Why should a man who is perfectly content, bother to get up to eat, or perhaps achieve something? He may starve to death, but would be happy to do so. And such a man will be content with his current state, which of course is contentment, and not at all resent his current state. Even a less invasive case, where a man is given almost everything he wants, yet not so much so that he does not eventually become dissatisfied with the amount of food in his belly and decide to put more in, even so there will be higher level motivations this man will lose.
While I consider myself a utilitarian, and believe the best choices are those that maximize the values of everyone, I cannot agree with the above situation. For now, this is no problem because people in their current state would not choose to artificially fulfill their desires via electrode implants, nor is it yet possible to actually fulfill everyone’s desires in the real world. I shall now go and rethink why I choose a certain path, if I cannot abide reaching the destination.
Welcome to Less Wrong!
First, let me congratulate you on stopping to rethink when you realize that you’ve found a seeming contradiction in your own thinking. Most people aren’t able to see the contradictions in their beliefs, and when/if they do, they fail to actually do anything about them.
While it is theoretically possible to artificially create pleasure and happiness (which, around here, we call wirehading), converting the entire observable universe to orgasmium (maximum pleasure experiencing substance) seems to go a bit beyond that. In general, I think you’ll find most people around here are against both, even though they’d call themselves “utilitarians” or similar. This is because there’s more than one form of utilitarianism; many Less Wrongers believe other forms, like preference utilitarianism are correct, instead of the original Millsian hedonistic utilitarianism.
Edit: fixed link formatting