Anders, glucose drinks are known to promote the release of neurotransmitters like serotonin one would expect to help self-control, but the problem is that the effect lasts less than an hour and is followed by a bigger effect in the opposite direction.
Richard_Hollerith
Hal, which goal would you choose if for some strange reason your choice of goal in life were constrained to these two: maximizing your own happiness and satisfaction or maximizing your own ability to percieve reality correctly? (I would be interested in others’ answers, too.)
Is it impossible for you to imagine a person who cares for nothing but increasing his ability to perceive reality correctly (his “awareness”) and consequently whenever he is rested and alert enough to make a deliberate choice, he will choose awareness over happiness whenever forced by circumstances to choose? (I grant you that in unrehearsed situations without enough cognitive resources for deliberation, the human mind tends to choose happiness.)
Note that since a certain minimum level of happiness is a PREREQUISITE for a creative career of any kind (just as at least in capitalistic countries a certain minimum level of wealth is a prerequisite) he might regularly pick happiness as a subgoal.
For example, if he finds himself feeling sad, he might go down to the cafe and strike up a conversation with a beautiful woman. If that is not enough, he might search for a suitable beautiful woman and tell her that life seems meaningless except when he is with her and so on, which is calculated to lead to intense and absorbing experiences which leave one feeling gratified and elated. If that is not enough, he might complain to his physician that he thinks he is ill or depressed. But these are not circumstances in which he is forced to choose between happiness and awareness: these are circumstances where his choice is optimal for both happiness and awareness because sadness undermines performance in most pursuits (in the modern environment).
I will grant you that for almost all people, happiness is an end in itself. But are you sure that no person exists with a comprehensive and lifelong policy that his happiness is only a means to an end?
Robin, I know this post is too long, but it is an issue I care deeply about!
Mr Britton, many claim that there is no way to settle this particular disagreement because it is over values. In contrast—and I realize I am in the minority on this—I believe that there is an objectively-valid proper ultimate goal.
More precisely, I do not know if there is or not, but if there is not, then life has no meaning, so I assume there is, and do my best to discern it even though any truly satisfactory knowledge of it will probably have to wait for future generations.
Natural selection caused us to feel happiness and decided what types of experiences lead to happiness.
To someone who knows evolutionary psychology, there is nothing surprising about the fact that many people claim that happiness is the proper goal of life. Let’s call them “hedonists and utilitarians”. But the existence of a causal chain—in this case a grand one stretching back billions of years starting with the start of life and ending with hedonists and utilitarians—does not by itself impose on me an obligation to continue that causal chain.
For example, the increase in entropy has been going on even longer than that, yet no one would criticize me for not devoting my life to maximizing the entropy of the universe.
The fact hedonism and utilitarianism are expected consequences of natural selection greatly reduces the probability that I have neglected another, more compelling cause of hedonism or utilitarianism, namely that they are the product of keen observers of reality and keen calculators of reality’s ethical implications.
The fact that I used to care about happiness as end in itself is adequately explained by the operation of my genes and by cultural transmission from hedonists and utilitarians.
Natural selection caused massive amount of pain and suffering. The suffering was “unavoidable” in the sense that even if the course of evolution leading to sentience had taken a different path, according to our models, billions or organisms with complex adaptations much like brains would experience mental states much like suffering. I.e., as soon as one has decided the laws of physics and decided that the universe will start with a sterile Big Bang and decided that the universe will be populated with sentient life via natural selection, one has decided that the universe will see massive suffering.
Finally, to enter Confessional Mode a bit, one possible reason I’ve come to this belief is that I’ve experienced more than the usual amount of suffering.
If Aristole’s argument exists on the net and you send me a pointer, I will read, then reply.
I was writing elliptically and did not flesh out my paragraph about suffering. The elliptical conclusion to that paragraph: most people believe it is an intrinsic good to ameliorate suffering, but my position is that amelioration of suffering is only an instrumental good. The Earth has seen 100s of millions of years of suffering. What is it about the physical structure of the Universe that makes 560,000,000 years of suffering followed by no more suffering a win and 560,001,000 years of suffering followed by no more suffering a loss? (I believe that all intrinsic goods flow from the physical structure of the Universe.) I can’t see how preventing suffering is (even in part) the ultimate goal of existence.
In other words, the fact of suffering was decided long before we came into being and nothing we can do can alter that fact.
No I do not believe in God. God is silly.
playing this game is rational if the thrill and the dream of beeing rich is valued more than 2$
Rukasu, I believe that having feelings about winning the lottery is an even bigger waste than the $2 because feelings are a scarce resource of the mind which can always be turned to a fruitful plan. In other words, since there are always many ways to get a thrill, always choose a way that can positively impact reality.
Kevembunagga, I believe every person should do his best to discern what is positive. Yes, I tend to agree that the more you impact reality the more you increase entropy, but the potential entropy of the Universe is truly huge (mostly macrostates being a Universe with a few really massive black holes); it seems to me that time will run out before the ability to keep on increasing entropy will.
I agree wholeheartedly with this post or blog entry. As one of my favorite authors once said, we are all pawns and players in the Game of Life.
If you (the reader) meet me, I will try to determine whether you are good or evil, that is, whether you’re expected impact on the future is positive or negative—and if you care for nothing but pleasure, I’m probably going to decide that you are at least a little evil—though the worst thing I will do to you is ignore you and refuse to cooperate with you. Moreover, I know how complex the human morality and rationality are, so I know that my judgement about people can always be in error.
Indeed, the consensus is not obvious. (Even if it were, it might be wrong: majorities are not always correct.)
Doug S: you could convince a doctor that you have a physical or mental illness that prevents you from working, and then apply for Supplemental Security Income. If your application is successful, you would recieve a very small but very reliable income (currently about $650 a month) plus health insurance (Medicaid). I assume you are American. I mention this because you seem very young and might not know this already. It is of course unethical to depend on the taxpayer for your living unless you really have no other choice.
Yes, your third alternatives demolish afterlife-ism, but that is no argument they should have any claim on our loyalty.
I am in essential agreement with The Meaning of Life FAQ (no longer on the net) and with your 1998 statement, “But if it comes down to Us or Them, I’m with Them,” and am very sad that since 2002 human beings and their preferences have so thoroughly dominated your moral universe.
In your dialog with Joe, it is you, not Joe, IMO, who needs to dare to imagine—dare to imagine the existence of aspects of reality that trump the wishes of human beings—dare to imagine that humans are significant not as ends but rather as means to nonhuman ends.
(An implication of my view is that resources applied to life extension and cryonics are better spent educating and inspiring new human beings.)
Nice story.
I’m going to focus on one word in your comment: “democracy”.
So, you would permit “democracy … to answer various questions formerly answered by scripture”?
It makes me sad to learn that. I am strongly opposed to the idea that counting votes is a good way of arriving at ordinary or moral truth (unless perhaps one is very picky about whose vote counts).
Of course, that pernicious idea—Majority Rule—is so prevalent in our world that I would not bother to voice my objection except that you are the leader of a project that if successful will impose on the entire future light cone decisions that will have the same unbendable and irreversible character that physical law now has. This property of irreversibility is quite unique to your project. (There are other project that would impose irreversible conditions, namely sterilization of the biosphere, if they fail or go wrong, but yours is the only one I know of that would do so if you succeed.)
What makes my agony and my sadness particularly acute is the knowledge that up to the age 19 or so, you wrote about ultimate ends in ways I found completely benign and lovable. I refer of course to documents like TMOLFAQ, which apparently you are now so ashamed of that you have removed it from the web.
Oh how sad it made me to read your Collective Extrapolated Volition document, with its horror of disenfranchisement, plus your speculations about extending the franchise to non-human primates, as if the very contingent, accidental, particular political religion of our times were a universal law of the universe that no rational agent with sufficient time to grow wise could object to!
Oh yeah: nice series of blog entries. Thanks for writing. And know that I know that it is only because your commitment to unambiguous publication of your beliefs that it is possible for me to snipe at you in this way.
I was riffing off of a few words you wrote here to make a point about CEV, about which I have strong feelings. I’ll restrict my future comments about CEV and AI to more appropiate forums.
(Are there adults who consider themselves qualified to comment here who have not read the Old Testament as part of their basic education?)
HA slipped in. HA: I will read your blog with great relish.
Another suberb post. I learn so much from your writings.
I have yet to read most of your post-2004 writings (making a living always seems to interfere), but I am guessing that your personal Mysterious Phenomenon was consciousness.
Summary: if they can make you believe absurdities, they can make you commit atrocities.
I caught your second talk at the Singularity Summit; it struck me as being up to your usual standards :)
I too would prefer for contemporary politics to show up here only very rarely.