self-control is inherently aggravating
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...
Similar ideas as Eliezer can occur to people without proper physics, experimental spirit or understanding of the brain (but I am not sure I can say “without rationality”, as the Art may not be what I think it to be). I mean,some Indian spiritual traditions have explicitly stated that although you feel and believe that you have a real self, although you feel your existence as an entity strongly, this is not acceptable evidence for the existence of your “self”. This is their key to selflessness. In other words, you may feel your existence outside of physics or whatever reality you believe in, and yet you should not trust this feeling. This sounds rational to me, but is further complicated by the fact that their tenets call for the abandonment of self, and thus the conclusion was not drawn on a fair ground. Also, the follow-up question of life-choices and meaning is dissolved by obligations that mainly consists of living an intellectual life as prescribed. I do not recommend reading this kind of material, it can hurt. I’m just making a point, that even without a scientific method, even while thinking your attitudes can control your afterlife, you can start having these meta thoughts and actually be somewhat right. Maybe this fact is relevent to, um, AI theory?