You have a point. I've never read The Beast in the Jungle, but I get the gist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beast_in_the_JungleIsn't there a danger that in entertaining transhumanism, we're always 'distracted by expectation' in just this way? — csalisbury
Posthuman heaven is probably just a foretaste of the wonders in store for sentience. Humans don’t have the conceptual scheme to describe life in a low-grade heavenly civilization with a hedonic range of +10 to +20, let alone a mature heaven with hedonic architecture of mind that spans, say, +90 to +100. The puritanical NU in me sometimes feels it’s morally frivolous to speculate on Heaven+ or Paradise 2.0. Yet if theoretical physicists are allowed to speculate on exotic states of matter and energy, then bioethicists may do so too – and bioethicists may have a keener insight into the long-term future of matter and energy in the cosmos.
But first the unknowns. Neuroscience hasn’t yet deciphered the molecular signature of pure bliss, merely narrowed its location to a single cubic millimetre in the posterior ventral pallidum in rats, scaled up to a cubic centimetre in humans. Next, neuroscience hasn’t cracked the binding problem: https://www.hedweb.com/hedethic/binding-interview.html
Unless you’re a strict NU, there’s not much point in creating patterns of blissful mind-dust or mere microexperiential zombies of hedonistic neurons. Rather, we’re trying to create cognitively intact unified subjects of bliss endowed with physically bigger and qualitatively richer here-and-nows. And next, how will tomorrow’s bliss be encephalised? The Darwinian bric-a-brac that helped our genes leave more copies of themselves in the ancestral environment of adaptation has no long-term future. The egocentric virtual worlds run by Darwinian minds may disappear too. But the intentional objects and default state-spaces of consciousness of posthumans are inconceivable to Darwnian primitives. Next, how steep or shallow will be the hedonic gradients of minds in different ranks of posthuman heaven? I sometimes invoke a +70 to a +100 supercivilisation, but this example isn’t a prediction. Rather, a wide hedonic range scanario can be chosen to spike the guns of critics who claim that posthuman heaven would necessarily be less diverse than Darwinian life with our schematic hedonic -10 to 0 to +10. Lastly, will the superpleasure axis continue to preserve a signaling function? Or will mature post-posthumans opt to offload the infrastructure of superheaven to zombie AI, and occupy hedonically “perfect” +100 states of mind indefinitely?
Talk of “perfection” is again likely to raise the hackles of critics worried about homogeneity. But a hedonically “perfect” +100 here-and-now can have humanly unimaginable richness. Monotony is a concept that belongs to the Darwinian era.
The above discussion assumes that advanced posthumans won’t be strict classical utilitarians who opt to engineer a hedonium/utilitronium shockwave. One political compromise is to preserve a bubble of complex civilization underpinned by information-signaling gradients of well-being that is surrounded by an expanding shockwave of pure bliss – not an ideal world by the lights of pure CU, but something close enough. — David Pearce
Alas, naysayers exist, even on this forum. But yes, transhuman life based on gradients of superhuman bliss will exceed our wildest expectations.Sounds like one helluva party! Who in his right mind can say "no" to that! — TheMadFool
My view of Darwinian life is so bleak that I'm more likely to quote Heinrich Heine, "Sleep is good, death is better; but of course, the best thing would to have never been born at all." Sorry. But aging and bereavement are sources of such misery that I share the transhumanist goal of their abolition via science. Mastery of our reward circuitry promises to make the nihilistic sentiments of NU antinatalists like me unthinkable.Thus, happiness and suffering are ultimately about living as long as possible i.e. happiness and suffering, whatever value one may choose to ascribe to them as transhumanists are currently doing, boils down keeping the flame of life burning to the maximum extent possible; in other words, the objective, the end, here seems to be immortality and happiness-suffering are merely the means. — TheMadFool
Yes. Pain and suffering have always been inevitable. Symptomatic relief is sometimes possible, but not far-reaching. But for the first time in history, we can glimpse the prospect of new reward architecture – not just the alleviation of specific external causes of suffering, but any suffering, and even the conceivability of suffering – and not in some mythical afterlife, but here on Earth. If we opt to edit our genomes, the world's last unpleasant experience may be a few centuries away. Pursuing the Noble Eightfold path can't recalibrate the hedonic treadmill or break the food chain, so a pragmatist like Gautama Buddha born today would surely approve. The hardware/software metaphor for the mind-brain shouldn't be taken too literally, but yes, transhumanism promises a revolution in both.Both buddhism and transhumanism acknowledge suffering as undesirable and happiness as a desideratum. However, to borrow computing terms, buddhism is about updating as it were our software - leave the world as it is but change/adapt our minds to it in such a way that suffering is minimized and happiness is maximized (I'll leave nirvana out of the discussion for the moment) - and transhumanism is about upgrading our hardware - change the world and also change our brains towards the same ends. — TheMadFool
My view of Darwinian life is so bleak that I'm more likely to quote Heinrich Heine, "Sleep is good, death is better; but of course, the best thing would to have never been born at all." — David Pearce
My view of Darwinian life is so bleak — David Pearce
Pursuing the Noble Eightfold path can't recalibrate the hedonic treadmill or break the food chain, so a pragmatist like Gautama Buddha born today would surely approve — David Pearce
Maybe in the very long-term future, advanced superbeings will opt to live in perpetual hedonic +100 super-nirvana. — David Pearce
Absolutely....and finally, seriously, and like adults, discuss what we really want - superhappiness (supernirvana) - and come up with a good plan how we're going to get there! — TheMadFool
I’m most cautious about timescales for the end of suffering and the third “super” of transhumanism, superhappiness — David Pearce
In the long run[, the end of suffering and a civilisation of superhuman bliss are probably just as inevitable a pain-free surgery when scientific understanding of the pleasure-pain axis matures — David Pearce
Hah. You’re very kind. Individual transhumanists are all too human. But your essential point stands. The abolitionist strand in modern transhumanism is really secular Buddhism, minus the metaphysical accretions. Suffering is vile, stupid and computationally redundant.If I may say so, some Buddhists (Tibetans mostly I suppose) would, at some point, connect the dots and come to the realization that transhumanists are reincarnations of Siddhartha Gautama :smile: They seem to have as of yet failed to make that connection. I hope they do and soon; I'm sure a little help from the 535 million Buddhists around the world will do the transhumanist cause some good. Expect yourselves to be worshipped at some point is what I have to say. — TheMadFool
However, here is a counterargument. Transhumanism at its best aims to promote the well-being of all sentience, or at least all sentience in our forward light-cone. I take a range of pills and potions, and intend to be symbolically cryothanased aged 75 or so with a view to reanimation, but it's not as though I anticipate seeing the Promised Land with any great confidence – quite aside from my scepticism about the metaphysics of enduring personal identity. Rather, our responsibility as intelligent moral agents is to try to ensure that future beings don't suffer in the way that human and nonhuman animals do today. We’re stepping-stones. No one should have to undergo the ravages of aging, witness the death of a loved one, experience psychological illness, or undergo the mundane frustrations and disappointments of Darwinian life. No sentient being should be factory-farmed, perish in the death factories, or starve or fall victim to a predator in Nature. The fact that many / most / all of us will never personally live to see the glorious future of sentience doesn't diminish our obligation to work to that end. — David Pearce
Allow me to pass over where we agree and focus on where we may differ. Each of us must come to terms with the pain and grief in our own lives. Often the anguish is very personal. Uniquely, humans have the ability to rationalise their own suffering and mortality. Rationalisation is normally only partially successful, but it’s a vital psychological crutch. Around 850,000 people each year fail to "rationalise" the unrationalisable and take their own lives. Millions more try to commit suicide and fail. Factory-farmed nonhuman animals lack the cognitive capacity and means to do so.Now, maybe this is a Stockholm-Syndrome approach...But in general I really do think that there may be something to the old idea that undergoing suffering is a condition for a more finely-tuned happiness. — csalisbury
Let’s genetically eliminate hedonic sub-zero experience altogether. — David Pearce
The pleasure-pain axis plays an indispensable signalling role in organic (but not inorganic) robots. When information-signalling wholly or partly breaks down, as in severe chronic depression or mania, the results are tragic. But consider high-functioning depressives and high-functioning hyperthymics. High-functioning hyperthymics tend to enjoy a vastly richer quality of life. Let's for now set aside futuristic speculation on an advanced civilization based on gradients of superhuman bliss. What are the pros and cons of using gene-editing to create just a hyperthymic society – where everyone enjoys a hedonic set-point and hedonic range comparable to today's genetically privileged hedonic elite?I have a sense that suffering helps us navigate, and altering the genetic hedonic pre-disposition would reciprocally alter the genetic basis of suffering, and leave us incapable of overcoming even the slightest obstacle. Like the fat people in the floaty chairs! Or the 30 million dead colonists on Miranda - in the film Serenity, who had unending bliss forced upon them, and just laid down and died. — counterpunch
Fish are sentient beings. Intelligent moral agents should enable fish to flourish, not exploit and kill themThis is quite aside from the fact that it's an unsystematic application of science, that by rights should start with limitless clean energy, carbon capture, desalination and irrigation, hydrogen fuel, total recycling, fish farming etc; so as to secure a prosperous sustainable future. I know that would make me, genuinely, much happier. — counterpunch
The pleasure-pain axis plays an indispensable signalling role in organic (but not inorganic) robots. When information-signalling wholly or partly breaks down, as in severe chronic depression or mania, the results are tragic. But consider high-functioning depressives and high-functioning hyperthymics. High-functioning hyperthymics tend to enjoy a vastly richer quality of life. — David Pearce
Let's for now set aside futuristic speculation on an advanced civilization based on gradients of superhuman bliss. What are the pros and cons of using gene-editing to create just a hyperthymic society – where everyone enjoys a hedonic set-point and hedonic range comparable to today's genetically privileged hedonic elite? — David Pearce
Their fate is not a sociologically credible model for a world based on gradients of genetically programmed well-being. — David Pearce
Fish are sentient beings. — David Pearce
organic (but not inorganic) robots. — David Pearce
I promise that transhumanists are as keen as anyone on a prosperous, sustainable future. — David Pearce
Upgrading our reward circuitry will ensure that sentient beings are better able to enjoy it. — David Pearce
Indeed. Even an “ideal” pleasure drug could be abused. The classic example from fiction is soma (cf. https://www.huxley.net/soma/somaquote.html) in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. I hope that establishment pharmacologists and the scientific counterculture alike can develop more effective mood-brighteners to benefit both the psychologically ill and the nominally well. Yet one reason I’ve focused on genetic recalibration and genetically-driven hedonic uplift is precisely to avoid the pitfalls of drug abuse. Whether you're a hyperthymic with an innate hedonic range of, say, 0 to +10 or a posthuman ranging from +90 to +100, you can continue to seek more – where the guise of “more” depends on how your emotions are encephalised. But an elevated hedonic set-point doesn’t pose the personal, interpersonal and societal challenges of endemic drug-taking. Indeed, we don’t know whether posthumans will take psychoactive drugs at all. I often assume that posthumans will take innovative designer drugs in order to explore alien state-spaces of consciousness. However, maybe our successors will opt to be mostly if not entirely drug-free. After all, if there weren’t something fundamentally wrong with our human default state of consciousness, then would we try so hard to change it? It’s tragic that mankind's attempts to do so are often so inept.But nevertheless there will always be more bliss to be had, if not is this not a prison your movement attempts to create? People will always seek more pleasure. Will they not? — Outlander
Is it possible you're conflating hyperthymia with mania? Yes, unusually temperamentally happy people have proverbially rose-tinted spectacles. Their affective biases need to be exhaustively researched before there's any bid to create a hyperthymic society. But the kind of temperament I had in mind is exemplified by the author of The Precipice (2020). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Precipice:_Existential_Risk_and_the_Future_of_HumanityHyperthymics engage in denial to rationalise their overly-positive mood. They lose the ability to navigate rationally, and the consequences can be just as tragic. Suffering doesn't go away just because the person isn't weeping. We are after all social beings, and hyperthymics go around inflicting their risk taking, attention seeking, libidinous psychology on others. — counterpunch
My describing human and nonhuman animals as sentient organic robots isn't intended to "dehumanise" them. Rather, it's to highlight how our behaviour is mechanistically explicable – and how we can create an architecture of mind that doesn't depend on pain. Inorganic robots don't need a signalling system of sub-zero states to function; re-engineered organic robots can do likewise.Or do you reserve such dehumanising ideas solely for humans? — counterpunch
Around 20% of humans never eat meat. Humans don't need to eat meat in order to flourish. Instead of harming our fellow creatures, we should be helping them by civilising the biosphere (cf. https://www.gene-drives.com). In the meantime, the cruelties of Nature don't serve as a moral license for humans to add to them via animal agriculture.Humans are sentient beings at the top of the food chain. Fish are meat. Humans eat meat, and need to produce it sustainably rather than dredge to oceans to death. I do not condone animals suffering any more than is necessary, but they're mortal, and humane farming is far kinder than nature – which really is red in tooth and claw. Most humans born will reach maturity. That's not so in nature. — counterpunch
Recall that all humans are untested genetic experiments. The germline can be edited – and unedited. But if we don't fix our legacy code, then atrocious suffering will proliferate indefinitely.Interfering in the human genome, so altering every subsequent human being who will ever live, is a risk that's not justified by depression — counterpunch
I'm struggling to parse this. Yes, feelings of malaise or discomfort may sometimes be subtle and elusive. But the "raw feels" of outright suffering – whether psychological or physical – are unmistakably nasty by their very nature. "The having is the knowing", as Galen Strawson puts it. Either way, if we replace the biology of hedonically sub-zero states with information-sensitive gradients of well-being, then unpleasant experience will become physically impossible. It won't be missed.if we don't feel the suffering, we will still suffer, but just won't know that we are suffering. — counterpunch
Is it possible you're conflating hyperthymia with mania? Yes, unusually temperamentally happy people have proverbially rose-tinted spectacles. Their affective biases need to be exhaustively researched before any bid to create a hyperthymic society. But the kind of temperament I had in mind is exemplified by the author of The Precipice (2020). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Precipice:_Existential_Risk_and_the_Future_of_Humanity — David Pearce
After all, if there weren’t something fundamentally wrong with our human default state of consciousness, then would we try so hard to change it? — David Pearce
Hyperthymia is the opposite of dysthymia (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysthymia). When advocating a hyperthymic civilisation, I'm urging a society where everyone has, at minimum, the high hedonic set-point of today's temperamentally happiest people who aren't manic (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mania). That said, apologies; I'd do well to use less jargon.I searched hyperthymia - and those are apparently, associated behaviours — counterpunch
If prospective parents agreed on a moratorium on genetic experiments, then an indefinite delay of genome-editing too would be wise. But at present most people intend to keep reproducing willy-nilly. Parenthood inevitably creates more involuntary suffering. So the question arises whether it's ethical not to load the genetic dice in favour of the subjects of the experiments. The least controversial option will be universal access to preimplantation genetic screening and counselling. But gene-editing is now feasible too. We shouldn’t just assume that the upshot of responsible editing will be worse than random genetic mutations and the genetic shuffling of traditional sexual reproduction.Maybe there will come a time when we understand genetics well enough, that the risk of altering the human genome — counterpunch
We'd both that agree stopping child abuse is morally imperative. The abuse of sentient beings of comparable sentience deserves similar priority. Perhaps try to empathise, if only for 30 seconds, with what it feels like to be, say, a factory-farmed pig.I don't wish to debate vegetarianism with you, because I think it's a perfectly valid choice, but it's absolutely not a moral imperative — counterpunch
To stress, I do not advocate becoming "deliriously happy". Hedonic set-point elevation doesn’t work like that.I could maybe imagine your genetic proscription for gradients of superhuman bliss working out in a prosperous sustainable future, but while the world is a basket case barrelling toward extinction, being deliriously happy nonetheless... — counterpunch
If the touted biohappiness revolution proposed that we should leapfrog ahead and try to create hedonic supermen, then you'd have a point. I hope I've clearly flagged that discussion of a future world animated by gradients of superhuman bliss is speculation. What isn't speculative is the existence of today's extremely high-functioning hedonic outliers – and the strong genetic loading of hyperthymia. The Anders Sandbergs (cf. https://quotefancy.com/quote/1695040/Anders-Sandberg-I-do-have-a-ridiculously-high-hedonic-set-point) of this world have more than adequate navigational skills. It's chronic depressives who often suffer from a broken compass. Responsible recalibration of the hedonic treadmill promises wider engagement with the problems of the world. Not least, passionate life-lovers care more about the future of sentience than depressive nihilists.I know you keep saying it wouldn't be like that; that we wouldn't lose our ability to navigate a still - hostile environment, but how can you possibly know? — counterpunch
Some people cannot imagine life could be different. Suffering shapes their conception of the human predicament and life itself. Other people have tasted paradise and want the world to share their vision. Alas, visions of the ideal society often conflict. Environmentally-based utopian experiments fail. In one sense, the biological-genetic strategy of hedonic uplift is tamer. Potentially, elevated pain thresholds, hedonic range and hedonic set-points can underpin a richer personal quality of life for all, but the manifold social, economic and political problems of society are left unaddressed. I'll bang the drum for a biohappiness revolution for as long as I'm able, but unless (like me) you're a negative utilitarian, it's not a panacea. The end of suffering will still be the most momentous revolution in the history of sentience.The grass is always greener on the other side. We want what we can't or at least don't have. Perhaps this is what you refer to? This is what it means to be human. The curse of want and desire. Without this, what differentiates a transhuman from a robot clothed in flesh? — Outlander
Perhaps try to empathise, if only for 30 seconds, with what it feels like to be, say, a factory-farmed pig. — David Pearce
Consider e.g.Otherwise, I've got no idea what's going on - and know nothing to compare it with. I'm loaded onto a truck, and driven to an abattoir. Someone puts something near my head and the world disappears in an instant. — counterpunch
Hence the case for:Now you imagine your life as a pig in the wild being ripped apart and eaten alive by a pack of wild dogs. — counterpunch
For a rebuttal, perhaps see e.g.Any thoughts on the Allan Savory video? He explains why we need animal agriculture. — counterpunch
Civilisation will be vegan. — David Pearce
Some people cannot imagine life could be different. Suffering shapes their conception of the human predicament and life itself. — David Pearce
Other people have tasted paradise and want the world to share their vision. — David Pearce
Environmentally-based utopian experiments fail. — David Pearce
Potentially, elevated pain thresholds, hedonic range and hedonic set-points can underpin a richer personal quality of life for all, but the manifold social, economic and political problems of society are left unaddressed. — David Pearce
The end of suffering will still be the most momentous revolution in the history of sentience. — David Pearce
There is no love without something to hate. No joy without something to annoy. No fun without something to bore. Is this true or false, young David — Outlander
I assume you're trolling. But if not, I promise vegans love food as much as meat eaters. Visit a vegan foodie community if you've any doubt.I always think that, vegans don't really like food; don't like to cook - and take no pleasure in eating. — counterpunch
If so, then it's mysterious why scientific studies suggest vegetarians tend to be slimmer, longer-lived and more intelligent than meat-eaters:It's because we are carnivores. — counterpunch
Is the level of pleasure someone derives from harming his victims – human or nonhuman – a morally relevant consideration?But I love food, I love cooking and eating, and you put yourself between me and a pork chop at your peril! — counterpunch
Yes, it's a powerful intuition. But if the existence of pain and pleasure were inseparable, then there would be no victims of chronic pain or depression. Chronic pleasure and happiness aren't harder to engineer genetically; but perpetual euphoria wasn't fitness-enhancing in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness. Biotech is a game-changer. Humanity now has the tools to create life based entirely on information-sensitive gradients of well-being – and eventually superhuman bliss.Let us hearken back to the basics. There is no love without something to hate. No joy without something to annoy. No fun without something to bore. Is this true or false, — Outlander
Once again, the intuition is deeply rooted. IMO it's just not supported by the empirical evidence. The temperamentally happiest people are simply born that way – and they don't experience deficits of perceived meaning.this takes us back to the statement Outlander seems to be interested in: superhappiness is meaningless without some suffering to serve as a foil in a manner of speaking. — TheMadFool
I assume you're trolling. But if not, I promise vegans love food as much as eaters. Visit a vegan foodie community if you've any doubt. — David Pearce
Is the level of pleasure someone derives from harming his victims – human or nonhuman – a morally relevant consideration? — David Pearce
If so, then it's mysterious why scientific studies suggest vegetarians tend to be slimmer, longer-lived and more intelligent than meat-eaters — David Pearce
Is the level of pleasure someone derives from harming his victims – human or nonhuman – a morally relevant consideration? — David Pearce
On some fairly modest assumptions, a world where all sentient beings can flourish is ethically preferable to a world where sentient beings hurt, harm and kill each other. Biotech makes the well-being of all sentience technically feasible. So let's civilise Darwinian life, not glory in its depravities:There are predators and prey. I'm a predator. — counterpunch
On some fairly modest assumptions, a world where all sentient beings can flourish is ethically preferable to a world where sentient beings hurt, harm and kill each other. Biotech makes the well-being of all sentience technically feasible. So let's civilise Darwinian life, not glory in its depravities: — David Pearce
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