If we self-consciously value the futile pursuit of self-continuation over actual self-continuation, it seems to me that something’s gone seriously wrong somewhere.
Just because that would be a ridiculous way to be, doesn’t mean it isn’t that way. (We weren’t designed afterall.) Suppose underlying every one of our goals is the terminal goal to continue forever. (It seems reasonable that this could be the purpose of most of our goals, since that would be the goals of evolution.) Then it makes sense that we might report ‘shrug’ in response to the question, ‘what goals would you have if you were already in a state of living forever’?
It would be necessary to just observe what the case is, regarding our goal structure. It seems that some people (Gray, and myself to some extent) anticipate that life would be meaningless. I think this might be a minority view, but still perhaps in the tens of percents?
I also allow that it is one thing to anticipate what our goals would be verses what they actually would be. I anticipated I wouldn’t have any goals if I stopped believing in God, but then I still did.
Just because that would be a ridiculous way to be, doesn’t mean it isn’t that way. (We weren’t designed afterall.)
That lack of design is precisely what makes me skeptical of the idea that the pursuit of self-continuation can be generalized that far. When I look at people’s goals, I see a lot of second- or third-degree correlates of self-continuation, but outside the immediate threat of death they don’t seem to be psychologically linked to continued life in any deep or particularly consistent way. Compared to frameworks like status signaling or reproductive fitness, in fact, self-preservation strikes me as a conspicuously weak base for generalized human goal structure.
All of which is more or less what I’d expect. We are adaptation-executors, not fitness-maximizers. Even if self-continuation was a proper terminal value, it wouldn’t be very likely that whatever component of our minds handles goal structure would actually implement that in terms of expected life years (if it did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation); in the face of perfect immortality we’re more likely to be left with many disconnected sub-values pointing towards survival-correlates which very likely could still be pursued. Contemporary people still happily pursue goals which were rendered thoroughly suboptimal upon leaving the EEA, after all; why should this be different?
And on top of all that, I suspect the entire question’s largely irrelevant; since individual self-preservation is only loosely coupled to genetic, memetic, or societal fitness, I’d be very surprised if it turned out to be a coherent top-level goal in many people. The selection pressures all point in other directions.
Yeah, I do agree with you. I would probably continue to care about all the same things if I were to live forever, such as getting along with my coworkers and eating yummy food. I might have time to seek training in a different profession, but I would still be working, and I certainly don’t eat now just to keep alive.
I’ll locate this sympathetic feeling I have with Gray as just another version of the nihilistic, angsty tendencies some of us wrestle with.
I think it would be nice to hear in more detail exactly what Gray meant...
However, empirically, I don’t think this is the case. Since we are so messy, we probably don’t have a feature to make desires for sex, power, companionship, exercise, etc. vanish when we attain immortality. We will probably just go on desiring those things, perhaps in somewhat different ways.
Just because that would be a ridiculous way to be, doesn’t mean it isn’t that way. (We weren’t designed afterall.) Suppose underlying every one of our goals is the terminal goal to continue forever. (It seems reasonable that this could be the purpose of most of our goals, since that would be the goals of evolution.) Then it makes sense that we might report ‘shrug’ in response to the question, ‘what goals would you have if you were already in a state of living forever’?
It would be necessary to just observe what the case is, regarding our goal structure. It seems that some people (Gray, and myself to some extent) anticipate that life would be meaningless. I think this might be a minority view, but still perhaps in the tens of percents?
I also allow that it is one thing to anticipate what our goals would be verses what they actually would be. I anticipated I wouldn’t have any goals if I stopped believing in God, but then I still did.
That lack of design is precisely what makes me skeptical of the idea that the pursuit of self-continuation can be generalized that far. When I look at people’s goals, I see a lot of second- or third-degree correlates of self-continuation, but outside the immediate threat of death they don’t seem to be psychologically linked to continued life in any deep or particularly consistent way. Compared to frameworks like status signaling or reproductive fitness, in fact, self-preservation strikes me as a conspicuously weak base for generalized human goal structure.
All of which is more or less what I’d expect. We are adaptation-executors, not fitness-maximizers. Even if self-continuation was a proper terminal value, it wouldn’t be very likely that whatever component of our minds handles goal structure would actually implement that in terms of expected life years (if it did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation); in the face of perfect immortality we’re more likely to be left with many disconnected sub-values pointing towards survival-correlates which very likely could still be pursued. Contemporary people still happily pursue goals which were rendered thoroughly suboptimal upon leaving the EEA, after all; why should this be different?
And on top of all that, I suspect the entire question’s largely irrelevant; since individual self-preservation is only loosely coupled to genetic, memetic, or societal fitness, I’d be very surprised if it turned out to be a coherent top-level goal in many people. The selection pressures all point in other directions.
Yeah, I do agree with you. I would probably continue to care about all the same things if I were to live forever, such as getting along with my coworkers and eating yummy food. I might have time to seek training in a different profession, but I would still be working, and I certainly don’t eat now just to keep alive.
I’ll locate this sympathetic feeling I have with Gray as just another version of the nihilistic, angsty tendencies some of us wrestle with.
I think it would be nice to hear in more detail exactly what Gray meant...
Insofar as evolution can be said to have goals, continuation of the individual is definitely not one of them.
Grouchy response retracted..
However, empirically, I don’t think this is the case. Since we are so messy, we probably don’t have a feature to make desires for sex, power, companionship, exercise, etc. vanish when we attain immortality. We will probably just go on desiring those things, perhaps in somewhat different ways.