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Fun Theory

TagLast edit: 12 Feb 2023 20:03 UTC by _will_

Fun Theory is the field of knowledge studying how to design for fun in future society: it deals in questions such as “How much fun is there in the universe?”, “Will we ever run out of fun?”, “Are we having fun yet?” and “Could we be having more fun?”

From The Fun Theory Sequence:

Many critics (including George Orwell) have commented on the inability of authors to imagine Utopias where anyone would actually want to live. If no one can imagine a Future where anyone would want to live, that may drain off motivation to work on the project. The prospect of endless boredom is routinely fielded by conservatives as a knockdown argument against research on lifespan extension, against cryonics, against all transhumanism, and occasionally against the entire Enlightenment ideal of a better future.

Fun Theory is also the fully general reply to religious theodicy (attempts to justify why God permits evil). Our present world has flaws even from the standpoint of such eudaimonic considerations as freedom, personal responsibility, and self-reliance. Fun Theory tries to describe the dimensions along which a benevolently designed world can and should be optimized, and our present world is clearly not the result of such optimization. Fun Theory also highlights the flaws of any particular religion’s perfect afterlife—you wouldn’t want to go to their Heaven.

The argument against Enlightenment

Some critiques of transhumanism (and related fields such as cryonics or lifespan extension) suggest that human enhancement would be accompanied boredom and the end of fun as we know it. For example: “if we self-improve human minds to extreme levels of intelligence, all challenges known today may bore us.” Likewise, “if superhumanly intelligent machines take care of our every need, it is apparent that no challenges nor fun will remain.”

However, we can work towards determining whether and how the universe will offer, or whether we ourselves can create, ever more complex and sophisticated opportunities to delight, entertain and challenge ever more powerful and resourceful minds.

The concept of Utopia

Transhumanists are usually seen as working towards a better human future. This future is sometimes conceptualized, as George Orwell aptly describes it, as Utopia:

“It is a commonplace [view] that the Christian Heaven, as usually portrayed, would attract nobody. Almost all Christian writers dealing with Heaven either say frankly that it is indescribable or conjure up a vague picture of gold, precious stones, and the endless singing of hymns… [W]hat it could not do was to describe a condition in which the ordinary human being actively wanted to be.”

Imagining this perfect future where every problem is solved and where there is constant peace and rest—as seen, a close parallel to several religious Heavens—rapidly leads to the conclusion that no one would actually want to live there.

Complex values and fun theory’s solution

A key insight of fun theory, in its current embryonic form, is that eudaimonia—the classical framework where happiness is the ultimate human goal—is complicated. That is, there are many properties which contribute to a life worth living. We humans require many things to experience a fulfilled life: Aesthetic stimulation, pleasure, love, social interaction, learning, challenge, and much more.

It is a common mistake in discussion of future society to extract only one element of the human preferences and advocate that it alone be maximized. This would neglect all other human values. For example, if we simply optimize for pleasure or happiness, “wirehead”, we’ll stimulate the relevant parts of our brain and experience bliss for eternity, but pursue no other experiences. If almost any element of our value system is absent, then the human future will likely be very unpleasant.

Enhanced humans are also seen to have the value system of humans today, but we may choose to change it as we self-enhance. We may want to alter our own value system, by eliminating values, like bloodlust, which on reflection we wish were absent. But there are many values which we, on reflection, want to keep, and since we humans have no basis for a value system other than our current value system, fun theory must seek to maximize the value system that we have, rather than inventing new values.

Fun theory thus seeks to let us keep our curiosity and love of learning intact, while preventing the extremes of boredom possible in a transhuman future if our strongly boosted intellects have exhausted all challenges. More broadly, fun theory seeks to allow humanity to enjoy life when all needs are easily satisfied and avoid the fall into the un-fun utopian futures in literature.

External links

See also

The Uses of Fun (The­ory)

Eliezer Yudkowsky2 Jan 2009 20:30 UTC
23 points
16 comments4 min readLW link

The Fun The­ory Sequence

Eliezer Yudkowsky25 Jan 2009 11:18 UTC
95 points
30 comments13 min readLW link

31 Laws of Fun

Eliezer Yudkowsky26 Jan 2009 10:13 UTC
98 points
36 comments8 min readLW link

The Maker of MIND

Tomás B.20 Nov 2021 16:28 UTC
102 points
19 comments11 min readLW link

Joy in the Merely Real

Eliezer Yudkowsky20 Mar 2008 6:18 UTC
168 points
43 comments2 min readLW link

The point of a game is not to win, and you shouldn’t even pre­tend that it is

mako yass28 Sep 2023 15:54 UTC
49 points
27 comments4 min readLW link
(makopool.com)

Without—MicroFic­tion 250 words

Carissa Cassiel9 Dec 2023 21:49 UTC
19 points
1 comment1 min readLW link

[Question] Ex­am­ples of Low Sta­tus Fun

niplav10 Oct 2023 23:19 UTC
18 points
17 comments1 min readLW link

Sto­ry­tel­ler’s con­ven­tion, 2223 A.D.

plex7 Apr 2023 11:54 UTC
8 points
0 comments2 min readLW link

Char­ac­ter­is­ing utopia

Richard_Ngo2 Jan 2020 0:00 UTC
36 points
5 comments22 min readLW link
(thinkingcomplete.blogspot.com)

[NSFW Re­view] In­ter­species Reviewers

lsusr1 Apr 2022 11:09 UTC
52 points
8 comments2 min readLW link

Play­ing Without Affordances

Alex Hollow18 Aug 2022 11:53 UTC
11 points
0 comments1 min readLW link
(alexhollow.wordpress.com)

Com­plex Novelty

Eliezer Yudkowsky20 Dec 2008 0:31 UTC
47 points
66 comments8 min readLW link

The Best Toy In The Park

jefftk25 Aug 2020 14:30 UTC
27 points
15 comments1 min readLW link
(www.jefftk.com)

The Ad­ven­ture: a new Utopia story

Stuart_Armstrong5 Feb 2020 16:50 UTC
98 points
37 comments51 min readLW link

our deep­est wishes

Tamsin Leake20 Dec 2022 0:23 UTC
30 points
0 comments1 min readLW link
(carado.moe)

Con­tin­u­ous Improvement

Eliezer Yudkowsky11 Jan 2009 2:09 UTC
29 points
26 comments9 min readLW link

Prole­gom­ena to a The­ory of Fun

Eliezer Yudkowsky17 Dec 2008 23:33 UTC
67 points
52 comments6 min readLW link

Bed Time Quests & Din­ner Games for 3-5 year olds

22 Jun 2024 7:53 UTC
51 points
0 comments1 min readLW link
(kidquest.substack.com)

Joy in the Here and Real

Screwtape10 Nov 2023 17:22 UTC
18 points
0 comments2 min readLW link

Com­pet­i­tive, Co­op­er­a­tive, and Cohabitive

Screwtape28 Sep 2023 23:25 UTC
48 points
12 comments4 min readLW link

High Challenge

Eliezer Yudkowsky19 Dec 2008 0:51 UTC
70 points
75 comments4 min readLW link

In­tro­duc­tion to Su­per Pow­ers (for kids!)

Shoshannah Tekofsky20 Sep 2024 17:17 UTC
25 points
0 comments3 min readLW link
(kidquest.substack.com)

Mo­ral­ity is Awesome

[deleted]6 Jan 2013 15:21 UTC
146 points
437 comments3 min readLW link

[Question] What’s your best al­ter­nate his­tory utopia?

Kaj_Sotala22 Feb 2021 8:17 UTC
25 points
33 comments1 min readLW link

What am I fight­ing for?

Quinn20 Apr 2021 23:27 UTC
12 points
1 comment13 min readLW link

Thoughts on Re-read­ing Brave New World

chemslug3 May 2021 3:28 UTC
10 points
9 comments5 min readLW link

A bridge to Dath Ilan? Im­proved gov­er­nance on the crit­i­cal path to AI al­ign­ment.

Jackson Wagner18 May 2022 15:51 UTC
24 points
0 comments12 min readLW link

The im­por­tance of study­ing sub­jec­tive experience

Q Home21 Oct 2022 8:43 UTC
10 points
3 comments7 min readLW link

Un­bounded In­tel­li­gence Lottery

kman7 Jul 2022 23:28 UTC
4 points
11 comments1 min readLW link

Open-ended ethics of phe­nom­ena (a desider­ata with uni­ver­sal moral­ity)

Ryo 8 Nov 2023 20:10 UTC
1 point
0 comments8 min readLW link

​​ Open-ended/​Phenom­e­nal ​Ethics ​(TLDR)

Ryo 9 Nov 2023 16:58 UTC
3 points
0 comments1 min readLW link

Build­ing Weirdtopia

Eliezer Yudkowsky12 Jan 2009 20:35 UTC
50 points
311 comments3 min readLW link

Map­ping Fun The­ory onto the challenges of eth­i­cal foie gras

HonoreDB7 Dec 2011 20:47 UTC
49 points
62 comments1 min readLW link

A Day in Utopia

ozymandias22 Nov 2017 16:57 UTC
26 points
10 comments5 min readLW link

In Praise of Boredom

Eliezer Yudkowsky18 Jan 2009 9:03 UTC
42 points
104 comments6 min readLW link

Failed Utopia #4-2

Eliezer Yudkowsky21 Jan 2009 11:04 UTC
122 points
266 comments9 min readLW link

Se­duced by Imagination

Eliezer Yudkowsky16 Jan 2009 3:10 UTC
43 points
20 comments2 min readLW link

Liv­ing By Your Own Strength

Eliezer Yudkowsky22 Dec 2008 0:37 UTC
45 points
32 comments5 min readLW link

Devil’s Offers

Eliezer Yudkowsky25 Dec 2008 17:00 UTC
49 points
48 comments6 min readLW link

Can’t Un­birth a Child

Eliezer Yudkowsky28 Dec 2008 17:00 UTC
54 points
96 comments3 min readLW link

Free to Optimize

Eliezer Yudkowsky2 Jan 2009 1:41 UTC
56 points
78 comments7 min readLW link

Harm­ful Options

Eliezer Yudkowsky25 Dec 2008 2:26 UTC
54 points
45 comments3 min readLW link

Am­pu­ta­tion of Destiny

Eliezer Yudkowsky29 Dec 2008 18:00 UTC
45 points
67 comments8 min readLW link

Sen­sual Experience

Eliezer Yudkowsky21 Dec 2008 0:56 UTC
39 points
86 comments4 min readLW link

Jus­tified Ex­pec­ta­tion of Pleas­ant Surprises

Eliezer Yudkowsky15 Jan 2009 7:26 UTC
27 points
61 comments3 min readLW link

Vi­su­al­iz­ing Eutopia

Eliezer Yudkowsky16 Dec 2008 18:39 UTC
21 points
37 comments3 min readLW link

Emo­tional Involvement

Eliezer Yudkowsky6 Jan 2009 22:23 UTC
26 points
53 comments6 min readLW link

Im­ple­men­ta­tions of immortality

Richard_Ngo1 Nov 2018 14:20 UTC
20 points
11 comments5 min readLW link
(thinkingcomplete.blogspot.com)

The Su­per Happy Peo­ple (3/​8)

Eliezer Yudkowsky1 Feb 2009 8:18 UTC
120 points
55 comments16 min readLW link

Is Kiryas Joel an Un­happy Place?

gwern23 Apr 2011 0:08 UTC
28 points
188 comments3 min readLW link
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