Thanks for pointing it out (by science!)-- a lot of people who wish to perfect their personality should know it. I didn’t consciously know it, but developed a mental discipline of acknowledging anger in my tormented teens anyway. People who hold intuitive ideals about “perfection of humanity/personality” should learn neuroscience, lest they suppose that things they ought to do (control themselves) must bring happiness. They may be confused when they experience that anger, and either conclude that they are born sinful/defective, or selfish/negative emotions are to be done away with to achieve perfection.
I really want say: It’s OK to feel hurt if you didn’t get what you want, even if that’s because you did what you should/must. Those who try to make humans completely ethical/self-controlled are turning us into something not human.
But what did I just say? Surely that’s an excuse for being impulsive? I want what I want, and I don’t want to be called unethical for that. And that humanness part—if doing whatever you end up deciding by taking “liking, wanting and learning” into account seems to be functional in the past, in meatspace, can’t it be utterly disastrous when we have access to Singularity-level power? Shouldn’t we sever the lower impulses and go with ethics instead? (But is it, um, fun?) I don’t know what should I feel...Hope the one that comes up with FAI first is not going to program it to value ethics strictly above fun...
Thanks for pointing it out (by science!)-- a lot of people who wish to perfect their personality should know it. I didn’t consciously know it, but developed a mental discipline of acknowledging anger in my tormented teens anyway. People who hold intuitive ideals about “perfection of humanity/personality” should learn neuroscience, lest they suppose that things they ought to do (control themselves) must bring happiness. They may be confused when they experience that anger, and either conclude that they are born sinful/defective, or selfish/negative emotions are to be done away with to achieve perfection.
I really want say: It’s OK to feel hurt if you didn’t get what you want, even if that’s because you did what you should/must. Those who try to make humans completely ethical/self-controlled are turning us into something not human.
But what did I just say? Surely that’s an excuse for being impulsive? I want what I want, and I don’t want to be called unethical for that. And that humanness part—if doing whatever you end up deciding by taking “liking, wanting and learning” into account seems to be functional in the past, in meatspace, can’t it be utterly disastrous when we have access to Singularity-level power? Shouldn’t we sever the lower impulses and go with ethics instead? (But is it, um, fun?) I don’t know what should I feel...Hope the one that comes up with FAI first is not going to program it to value ethics strictly above fun...