you have no understanding of what it means to be human. — Noble Dust

Maybe. But if so, would you argue that the World Health Organization should scrap its founding constitution ("health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing") because it too shows no understanding of what it means to be human? After all, nobody in history has yet enjoyed health as so defined. 

Universe/s could exist or spawn forevermore? — Down The Rabbit Hole

Cosmology is in flux. We understand enough, I think, to sketch out how experience below hedonic zero could be prevented in our forward light-cone. At times I despair of a political blueprint for the abolitionist project, but technically it's feasible. But even if we're alone in our Hubble volume, does suffering exist elsewhere which rational agents are impotent to do anything about? I worry about such things, but it's not fruitful. As soon as intelligent agents are absolutely certain that our ethical duties have been discharged, I think the very existence of suffering is best forgotten.

where's the proof that depression doesn't serve a useful purpose? — counterpunch

If we take a gene's-eye-view, then a predisposition to depression frequently did serve a useful purpose in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness. See the literature on the Rank Theory of depression:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032718310280?via%3Dihub
But this is no reason to conserve the biology of low mood. Depression is a vile disorder.

...what if a brainstorming session of the world's leading minds came to the conclusion that the best game plan/strategy is precisely what we thought we could do better than i.e. random mutation is the solution "...to seize control of their (our) destiny"? You many ignore this point if you wish but I'd be grateful and delighted to hear your response. — TheMadFool

One of the most valuable skills one can acquire in life is working out who are the experts in any field, then (critically) deferring to their expertise. But who are the world's leading minds in the nascent discipline of futurology? In bioethics? We hold the designers and programmers of inorganic robots (self-driving cars etc) accountable for any harm they cause. Sloppy code that causes injury to others can't be excused with a plea that the bugs might one day be useful. By contrast, humans feel entitled to conduct as many genetic experiments involving sentient organic robots as they like, regardless of the toll of suffering (cf. https://www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.html#agreeantinatal). Anyhow, to answer your question: if the world’s best minds declared that we should conserve the biological-genetic status quo, then I think they'd be mistaken. If we don’t reprogram the biosphere, then unimaginable pain and suffering still lie ahead. The horrors of Darwinian life would continue indefinitely. Transhumanists believe that intelligent moral agents can do better.

If a particular PU theory doesn’t have anything to say about wild animal suffering then the proponent of that theory probably just doesn’t think that wild animal suffering is important to resolve. I think we would need to make an argument in favor of focusing our time and energy on wild animal suffering. Otherwise, how could we know that ending the suffering of wild animals is a worthy pursuit and a wise use of our time. — TheHedoMinimalist

Biotech informed by negative or classical utilitarianism can get rid of disvaluable experience altogether over the next few centuries. Preference utilitarianism plus biotech might do so too if enough people were to favour a biological-genetic strategy for ending suffering: I don’t know. Either way, any theory of (dis)value or ethics that neglects the interests of nonhuman animals is arbitrarily anthropocentric. Nonhuman animals are akin to small children. They deserve to be cared for accordingly. The world needs an anti-speciesist revolution:
https://www.antispeciesism.com/

Come to think of it, you may have been talking about the possibility of an infinite multiverse, where suffering is, well, infinite? Is this something you are concerned about? — Down The Rabbit Hole

The possibility that we live in a multiverse scares and depresses me:
https://www.abolitionist.com/multiverse.html
I'm not sure the notion of physically realised infinity is intelligible. But even if Hilbert space is finite, it's still intuitively big – albeit infinitesimally small compared to a notional infinite multiverse.

..if evolution is true and it's been in play for at least a few billion years, shouldn't the status quo for intelligence, longevity, and happiness be optimum/maximum for the current "environment". In other words, we have in terms of the trio of intelligence, longevity, and happiness, the best deal nature has to offer. We shouldn't, in that case, attempt to achieve superintelligence, superlongevity, and superhappiness... — TheMadFool

Thank you for the kind words. Evolution via natural selection is a monstrous engine for the creation of pain and suffering. But Darwinian life contains the seeds of its own destruction. Yes, our minds are well-adapted to the task of maximising the inclusive fitness of our genes in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA). So humans are throwaway vehicles for self-replicating DNA. But sentient beings are poised to seize control of their own destiny. Recall that traditional natural selection is "blind". It's underpinned by effectively random genetic mutations and the quasi-random process of meiotic shuffling. Sexual reproduction is a cruel genetic lottery. However, intelligent agents are shortly going to rewrite their own source code in anticipation of the likely behavioural and psychological effects of their choices. As the reproductive revolution unfolds, genes and allelic combinations that promote superintelligence, superlongevity and superhappiness will be strongly selected for. Gene and allelic combinations associated with low intelligence, reduced longevity and low mood will be selected against.

My work has focused on the problem of suffering and the challenge of coding genetically hardwired superhappiness. But consider the nature of human intelligence. Are human minds really “the best deal Nature has to offer”, as you put it? Yes, evolution via natural selection has thrown up an extraordinary adaptation in animals with the capacity for rapid self-propelled motion, namely (1) egocentric world-simulations that track fitness-relevant patterns in their local environment. Phenomenal binding in the guise of virtual world-making (“perception”) is exceedingly adaptive (cf. https://www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.html#lifeillus). Neuroscientists don't understand how a pack of supposedly classical neurons can do it. Evolution via natural selection has thrown up another extraordinary adaptation in one species of animal, namely (2) the virtual machine of serial logico-linguistic thought. Neuroscientists don't understand how serial thinking is physically possible either. However, what evolution via natural selection hasn't done – because it would entail crossing massive "fitness gaps” – is evolve animals supporting (3) programmable digital computers inside their skulls. Slow, serial, logico-linguistic human thinking can't compete with a digital computer executing billions of instructions per second. So digital computers increasingly outperform humans in countless cognitive domains. The list gets longer by the day. Yet this difference in architecture doesn't mean a divorce between (super)intelligence and consciousness is inevitable. Recursively self-improving transhumans won't just progressively rewrite their own source code. Transhumans will also be endowed with the mature successors of Neuralink; essentially Net-enabled "narrow" superintelligence on a neurochip (cf. https://theconversation.com/neuralinks-monkey-can-play-pong-with-its-mind-imagine-what-humans-could-do-with-the-same-technology-158787). I’m sceptical about a full-blown Kurzweilian fusion of humans with our machines, but some degree of "cyborgisation" is inevitable. Get ready for a biointelligence explosion.

Archaic humans are cognitively ill-equipped in other ways too. Not least, minds evolved under pressure of natural selection lack the conceptual schemes to explore billions of alien state-spaces of consciousness:
https://www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.html#psychedelically
I could go on; but in short: expect a major evolutionary transition in the development of life.

My best guess is that what Eric Drexler called the "thermodynamic miracle” of life's genesis means that the percentage of life-supporting Hubble volumes where primordial life emerged more than once is extremely low. If so, then the principle of mediocrity suggests that we're alone. There will be no scope for cosmic rescue missions – even if we optimistically believe that Earth-originating life would be more likely to spread suffering elsewhere than to mitigate it.

If this conjecture turns out to be correct, then our NU ethical duties will have been discharged when we have phased out the biology of suffering on Earth and taken steps ensure it doesn't recur within our cosmological horizon.

Naturally, I could be mistaken.
For a radically different perspective, see:
https://www.overcomingbias.com/tag/aliens

I do not believe that science suggests you are not special. I think science suggests exactly what you argued already, that we're all distinct, "special", each one of us having one's own distinct theoretical independent world. And I think that this generalization, that we are all somehow "the same", is an unjustified philosophical claim. So I think you need something stronger than your own personal feelings, that agony and despair are disvaluable to you, to support your claim that they are disvaluable to everyone. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am not without idiosyncrasies. But short of radical scepticism, the claim that agony and despair are disvaluable by their very nature is compelling. If you have any doubt, put your hand in a flame. Animals with a pleasure-pain axis have the same strongly evolutionary conserved homologous genes, neurological pathways and neurotransmitter systems for pleasure- and pain-processing, and the same behavioural response to noxious stimuli. Advanced technology in the form of reversible thalamic bridges promises to make the conjecture experimentally falsifiable too (cf. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/magazine/could-conjoined-twins-share-a-mind.html). Reversible thalamic bridges should also allow partial “mind-melding” between individuals of different species.

Some of the soul-chilling things Nietzsche said make him sound as though he had an inverted pain-pleasure axis: https://www.nietzsche.com
In reality, Nietzsche was in thrall to the axis of (dis)value no less the most ardent hedonist.

In any event, transhumanists aspire to a civilisation of superintelligence and superlongevity as well as superhappiness – and many more "supers" besides.

where I would want to push back is that it needs to be the only thing we are concerned with.... We seem to deliberately seek out and endure pain to attain some other values, such as fitness, winning or looking good... I wouldn't say we value the pain we endure during sports, but it does seem to be the case that sometimes we value other things more than we disvalue pain. So how would you reconcile this kind of behavior with pain/pleasure being the inbuilt metric of (dis)value? — ChatteringMonkey

I think the question to ask is why we nominally (dis)value many intentional objects that are seemingly unrelated to the pleasure-pain axis. "Winning” and demonstrating one is a dominant alpha male who can stoically endure great pain and triumph in competitive sports promises wider reproductive opportunities than being a milksop. And for evolutionary reasons, mating, for most males, is typically highly rewarding. We see the same in the rest of the Nature too. Recall the extraordinary lengths some nonhuman animals will go to breed. What’s more, if (contrary to what I’ve argued) there were multiple axes of (dis)value rather than a sovereign pain-pleasure axis, then there would need to be some kind of meta-axis of (dis)value as a metric to regulate trade-offs.

You may or may not find this analysis persuasive; but critically, you don't need to be a psychological hedonist, nor indeed any kind of utilitarian, to appreciate it will be good to use biotech to end suffering.

Perhaps not, but I don't think that the use of classical digital computers is central to any ancestor simulation hypothesis. Don't such theories work with artificial mini-brains? — Michael

One may consider the possibility that one could be a mind-brain in a neurosurgeon’s vat in basement reality rather than a mind-brain in a skull as one naively supposes. However, has one any grounds for believing that this scenario is more likely? Either way, this isn’t the Simulation Hypothesis as envisaged in Nick Bostrom’s original Simulation Argument (cf. https://www.simulation-argument.com/).
What gives the Simulation Argument its bite is that, pre-reflectively at any rate, running a bunch of ancestor-simulations is the kind of cool thing an advanced simulation might do. And if you buy the notion of digital sentience, and the idea that what you’re now experiencing is empirically indistinguishable from what your namesake in multiple digital ancestor-simulations is experiencing, then statistically you are more likely to be in one of the simulations than in the original.

Elon Mask puts the likelihood that we’re living in primordial basement reality at billions-to-one against. But last time I asked, Nick doesn't assign a credence to the Simulation Hypothesis of more than 20%.

I think reality has only one level and we’re patterns in it.

I don’t see how that’s a problem for PU though. I think they could easily respond to this concern by simply stating that we regrettably have to sacrifice the preferences of one group to fulfill the preferences of a more important group in these sorts of dilemmas. I also think this sort of thing applies to hedonism also. In this dilemma, it seems we would also have to choose between prioritizing reducing the suffering of the predator or prioritizing reducing the suffering of the prey. — TheHedoMinimalist

Even if we prioritise, preference utilitarianism doesn’t work. Well-nourished tigers breed more tigers. An exploding tiger population then has more frustrated preferences. The swollen tiger population starves in consequences of the dwindling numbers of their prey. Prioritising herbivores from being predated doesn’t work either – at least, not on its own. As well as frustrating the preferences of starving predators, a population explosion of herbivores would lead to mass starvation and hence more even frustrated preferences. Insofar as humans want ethically to conserve recognisable approximations of today’s "charismatic mega-fauna", full-blown compassionate stewardship of Nature will be needed: reprogramming predators, cross-species fertility-regulation, gene drives, robotic “AI nannies” – the lot. From a utilitarian perspective (cf. https://www.utilitarianism.com), piecemeal interventions to solve the problem of wild animal suffering are hopeless.

I’m curious to know what reasons do you think that we have to care specifically about the welfare of sentient creatures and not other kinds of entities — TheHedoMinimalist

Mattering is a function of the pleasure-pain axis. Empirically, mattering is built into the very nature of the first-person experience of agony and ecstasy. By contrast, configurations of matter and energy that are not subjects of experience have no interests. Subjectively, nothing matters to them. A sentient being may treat them as significant, but their importance is only derivative.

Artificial mini-brains, and maybe one day maxi-minds, are technically feasible. What's not possible, on pain of spooky "strong" emergence, is the creation of phenomenally-bound subjects of experience in classical digital computers:
https://www.binding-problem.com/
https://www.hedweb.com/hedethic/binding-interview.html

David, at some point after implementation of the technology (maybe after 300 years, maybe after 1000 years, maybe after a million years) it is bound to be used to cause someone an unnatural amount of suffering. Suffering that is worse than could be experienced naturally.

Is one or two people being treated to an unnatural amount of suffering (at any point in the future) worth it to provide bliss for the masses? Shouldn't someone that would walk away from Omelas walk away from this technology? — Down The Rabbit Hole

Yes, anyone who understands suffering should "walk away from Omelas". If the world had an OFF switch, then I'd initiate a vacuum phase-transition without a moment's hesitation. But there is no OFF switch. It's fantasy. Its discussion alienates potential allies. Other sorts of End-of-the-World scenarios are fantasy too, as far as I can tell. For instance, an AI paperclipper (cf. https://www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.html#dpautistic) would align with negative utilitarian (NU) values; but paperclippers are impracticable too. One of my reasons for floating the term "high-tech Jainism" was to debunk the idea that negative utilitarians are plotting to end life rather than improve it. For evolutionary reasons, even many depressives are scared of death and dying. As a transhumanist, I hope we can overcome the biology of aging. So I advocate opt-out cryonics and opt-in cryothanasia to defang death and bereavement for folk who fear they won't make the transition to indefinite youthful lifespans. This policy proposal doesn’t sound very NU – why conserve Darwinian malware? – but ending aging / cryonics actually dovetails with a practical NU ethic.

S(uffering)-risks? The s-risk I worry about is the possibility that a technical understanding of suffering and its prevention could theoretically be abused instead to create hyperpain. So should modern medicine not try to understand pain, depression and mental illness for fear the knowledge could be abused to create something worse? After all, human depravity has few limits. It's an unsettling thought. Mercifully, I can't think of any reason why anyone, anywhere, would use their knowledge of medical genetics to engineer a hyper-depressed, hyperpain-racked human. By contrast, the contemporary biomedical creation of "animal models" of depression is frightful.

Is it conceivable that (trans)humans could phase out the biology of suffering and then bring it back? Well, strictly, yes: some philosophers have seriously proposed that an advanced civilisation that has transcended the horrors Darwinian life might computationally re-create that life in the guise of running an "ancestor simulation". Auschwitz 2.0? Here, at least, I’m more relaxed. I don't think ancestor simulations are technically feasible – classical computers can't solve the binding problem. I also discount the possibility that superintelligences living in posthuman heaven will create pockets of hell anywhere in our forward light-cone. Creating hell – or even another Darwinian purgatory – would be fundamentally irrational.

Should a proponent of suffering-focused ethics spend so much time exploring transhumanist futures such as quasi-immortal life animated by gradients of superhuman bliss? Dreaming up blueprints for paradise engineering can certainly feel morally frivolous. However, most people just switch off if one dwells entirely on the awfulness of Darwinian life. My forthcoming book is entitled “The Biohappiness Revolution" – essentially an update on “The Hedonistic Imperative”. Negative utilitarianism, and maybe even the abolitionist project, is unsaleable under the latter name. Branding matters.

You seem to be saying there is something fundamental about pain and pleasure, because it is life's (or actually the world's?) inbuilt metric of value... It just isn't entirely clear to me why. — ChatteringMonkey

IMO, asking why agony is disvaluable is like asking why phenomenal redness is colourful. Such properties are mind-dependent and thus (barring dualism) an objective, spatio-temporally located feature of the natural world:
https://www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.html#metaethics
Evolution doesn’t explain such properties, as distinct from when and where they are instantiated. Phenomenal redness and (God forbid) agony could be created from scratch in a mini-brain, i.e. they are intrinsic properties of some configurations of matter and energy. It would be nice to know why the solutions to the world's master equation have the textures they do; but in the absence of a notional cosmic Rosetta stone to "read off" their values, it's a mystery.

wouldn't it to be expected, your and other philosophers efforts notwithstanding, that in practice genetic re-engineering will be used as a tool for realising the values we have now? And by 'we' I more often then not mean political and economic leaders who ultimately have the last say because they are the ones financing research. I don't want to sound alarmist, but can we really trust something with such far-reaching consequence as a toy in power and status games? — ChatteringMonkey

I've no short, easy answer here. But fast-forward to a time later this century when approximate hedonic range, hedonic set-points and pain-sensitivity can be genetically selected – both for prospective babies and increasingly (via autosomal gene therapy) for existing humans and nonhuman animals. Anti-aging inteventions and intelligence-amplification will almost certainly be available too, but let's focus on hedonic tone and the pleasure-pain axis. What genetic dial-settings will prospective parents want for their children? What genetic dial settings and gene-expression profiles will they want for themselves? Sure, state authorities are going to take an interest too. Yet I think the usual sci-fi worries of, e.g. some power-crazed despot breeding of a caste of fearless super-warriors (etc), are misplaced. Like you, I have limited faith in the benevolence of the super-rich. But we shouldn't neglect the role of displays of competitive male altruism. Also, one of the blessings of information-based technologies such as gene-editing is that once the knowledge is acquired, their use won't be cost-limited for long. Anyhow, I'm starting to sing a happy tune, whereas there are myriad ways things could go wrong. I worry I’m sounding like a propagandist rather than an advocate. But I think the basic point stands. Phasing out hedonically sub-zero experience is going to become technically feasible and eventually technically trivial. Humans may often be morally apathetic, but they aren't normally malicious. If you had God-like powers, how much involuntary suffering would you conserve in the world? Tomorrow's policy makers will have to grapple with this kind of question.

it not completely clear to me as to why having the intrinsic aim of minimizing suffering in the whole world is more reasonable than another kind of more abstract and speculative intrinsic aim like the intrinsic aim of minimizing instances of preference frustrations for example — TheHedoMinimalist

The preferences of predator and prey are irreconcilable. So are trillions of preferences of social primates. The challenge isn't technological, but logical. Moreover, even if vastly more preferences could be satisfied, hedonic adaptation would ensure most sentient beings aren't durably happier. Hence my scepticism about "preference utilitarianism", a curious oxymoron. Evolution designed Darwinian malware to be unsatisfied. By contrast, using biotech to eradicate the molecular signature of experience below hedonic zero also eradicates subjectively disvaluable states. In a world animated entirely by information-sensitive gradients of well-being, there will presumably still be unfulfilled preferences. There could still, optionally, be social, economic and political competition – even hyper-competition – though one may hope full-spectrum superintelligence will deliver superhuman cooperative problem-solving prowess rather than primate status-seeking. Either way, a transhuman world without the biology of subjective disvalue would empirically be a better world for all sentience. It’s unfortunate that the goal of ending suffering is even controversial.

the idea of being able to hardwire gradients of bliss smacks of hubris to me. — Noble Dust

Creating new life and suffering via the untested genetic experiments of sexual reproduction feels natural. Creating life engineered to be happy – and repairing the victims of previous genetic experiments – invites charges of “hubris”. Antinatalists might say that bringing any new sentient beings into this god-forsaken world is hubristic. But if we accept that the future belongs to life lovers, then who shows greater humility:
(1) prospective parents who trust that quasi-random genetic shuffling will produce a benign outcome?
(2) responsible (trans)humans who ensure their children are designed to be healthy and happy?

It seems to me that you are indulging in a vision of a paradise, that probably serves the same purpose as the Christian paradise: console, bring solace. It's a form of escapism. — Olivier5

A plea to write good code so future sentience doesn't suffer isn't escapism; it's a policy proposal for implementing the World Health Organization's commitment to health. Future generations shouldn't have to undergo mental and physical pain.

The "peaceable kingdom" of Isaiah?
The reason for my quoting the Bible isn't religious leanings: I'm a secular scientific rationalist. Rather, bioconservatives are apt to find the idea of veganising the biosphere unsettling. If we want to make an effective case for compassionate stewardship, then it's good to stress that the vision of cruelty-free world is venerable. Quotes from Gautama Buddha can be serviceable too. Only the implementation details (gene-editing, synthetic gene drives, cross-species fertility-regulation, etc) are a modern innovation.

Thank you. Evolution via natural selection has encephalised our emotions, so we (dis)value many things beyond pain and pleasure under that description. If intentional objects were encephalised differently, then we would (dis)value them differently too. Indeed, our (dis)values could grotesquely be inverted – “grotesquely” by the lights of our common sense, at any rate.

What's resistant to inversion is the pain-pleasure axis itself. One simply can't value undergoing agony and despair, just as one can't disvalue experiencing sublime bliss. The pain-pleasure axis discloses the world's inbuilt metric of (dis)value.

However, it's not necessary to accept this analysis to recognise the value of phasing out the biology of involuntary suffering. Recalibrating your hedonic treadmill can in principle leave your values and preference architecture intact – unless one of your preferences is conserving your existing (lower) hedonic range and (lower) hedonic set-point. In practice, a biohappiness revolution is bound to revolutionise many human values – and other intentional objects of the Darwinian era. But bioconservatives who fear their values will necessarily be subverted by the abolition of suffering needn’t worry. Even radical elevation of your hedonic set-point doesn't have to subvert your core values any more than hedonic recalibration would change your football-team favourite. What would undermine your values is uniform bliss – unless you're a classical utilitarian for whom uniform orgasmic bliss is your ultimate cosmic goal. Life based on information-sensitive gradients of intelligent well-being will be different. What guises this well-being will take, I don't know.

I don’t even know if other people are capable of suffering let alone that I have some kind of weird abstract reason to care about it. It seems to me that the reasons that we might have to minimize the suffering of others are almost just as speculative... — TheHedoMinimalist

You say you're "mostly an ethical egoist". Do you accept the scientific world-picture? Modern civilisation is based on science. Science says that no here-and-nows are ontologically special. Yes, one can reject the scientific world-picture in favour of solipsism-of-the-here-and-now (cf. https://www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.html#idsolipsism). But if science is true, then solipsism is a false theory of the world. There’s no reason to base one’s theories of ethics and rationality on a false theory. Therefore, I believe that you suffer just like me. I favour the use of transhumanist technologies to end your suffering no less than mine. Granted, from my perspective your suffering is theoretical. Yet its inaccessibility doesn't make it any less real. Am I mistaken to act accordingly?

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute have revealed that CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing can lead to unintended mutations at the targeted section of DNA in early human embryos. — Olivier5

A hundred-year moratorium on reckless genetic experimentation would be good; but antinatalism will always be a minority view. Instead, prospective parents should be encouraged to load the genetic dice in favour of healthy offspring by making responsible genetic choices. Base-editing is better than CRISPR-Cas9 for creating invincibly happy, healthy babies:
https://www.labiotech.eu/interview/base-editing-horizon-discovery/

Hey, I have another question, are there any aspects of the current homo sapiens that you would identify as already transhuman? — fdrake

Candidly, no. Until we edit our genomes, even self-avowed transhumanists will remain all too human. All existing humans run the same kind of egocentric world-simulation with essentially the same bodily form, sensory modes, hedonic range, core emotions, means of reproduction, personal relationships, life-cycle, maximum life-span, and default mode of ordinary waking consciousness as their ancestors on the African savannah. For sure, the differences between modern and archaic humans are more striking than the similarities; but I suspect we have more in common with earthworms than we will with our genetically rewritten posthuman successors.

What if gene-editing doesn't remove suffering but simply re-calibrates it in an unfavorable way? — Outlander

Compare the introduction of pain-free surgery:
https://www.general-anaesthesia.com/
Surgical anaesthesia isn't risk-free. Surgeons and anaesthesiologists need to weigh risk-reward ratios. But we recognise that reverting to the pre-anaesthetic era would be unthinkable. Posthumans will presumably reckon the same about reverting to pain-ridden Darwinian life.

Consider again the SCN9A gene. Chronic pain disorders are a scourge. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide suffer terribly from chronic pain. Nonsense mutations of SCN9A abolish the ability to feel pain. Yet this short-cut to a pain-free world would be disastrous: we'd all need to lead a cotton-wool existence. However, dozens of other mutations of SCN9A confer either unusually high or unusually low pain thresholds. We can at least ensure our future children don’t suffer in the cruel manner of so many existing humans. Yes, there are lots of pitfalls. The relationship between pain-tolerance and risky behaviour needs in-depth exploration. So does the relationship between pain sensitivity and empathy; consider today's mirror-touch synaesthetes. However, I think the biggest potential risks of choosing alleles associated with elevated pain tolerance aren't so much the danger of directly causing suffering to the individual through botched gene therapy, but rather the unknown societal ramifications of creating a low-pain civilisation as a prelude to a no-pain civilisation. People behave and think differently if (like today's fortunate genetic outliers) they regard phenomenal pain as "just a useful signalling mechanism”. Exhaustive research will be vital.

What I'm really worried about is a transhumanistic approach to the human situation that is not based on an accurate understanding of that human situation; an approach that assumes too much and introspects about ourselves far too little. — Noble Dust

I share your reservations about gung-ho enthusiasm for technology. But transhumanism is a recipe for deeper self-understanding. The only way to develop a scientific knowledge of consciousness is to adopt the experimental method. Alas, a post-Galilean science of mind faces immense obstacles: https://www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.html#psychedelics
Not least, it's hard responsibly to urge the use of psychedelics to explore different state-spaces of consciousness until our reward circuitry is ungraded to ensure invincible well-being.

Somewhat related; how does transhumanism address addiction? — Noble Dust

If I might quote Pascal,
“All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.”

Transhumanism can treat our endogenous opioid addiction by ensuring that gradients of lifelong bliss are genetically hardwired.

It's also very hard to do, I know. — Olivier5

Indeed. At times, my heart sinks at the challenges. But if we don't upgrade our legacy code, then pain and suffering will continue indefinitely.

Preimplantation genetic diagnosis and screening is worth distinguishing from gene-editing. Ratcheting up hedonic range, hedonic set-points and pain thresholds in human and nonhuman animal populations would certainly be feasible using nothing but preimplantation genetic screening alone; but germline gene-editing will be quicker.

The rogue He Jiankui case was indeed unfortunate. Well-controlled prospective trials will take time. So will preparing the ethical-ideological groundwork. Most people are accepting (if uncomfortable) with the idea of genetic interventions to prevent, say, Huntingdon's, Tay-Sachs or sickle cell disease, but not yet receptive to the prospect of selecting higher pain-thresholds or hedonic set-points.

I'm sceptical gene-editing could prove to be a dead-end. Modulating even a handful of genes such as the half-dozen I mentioned in my reply to counterpunch above could create radical hedonic uplift across the biosphere. Rather, I'm glossing over all sorts of risks, complications and unknowns – permissible in a philosophy forum when we are discussing the fundamental principles of a biohappiness revolution, but not if-and-when real-world trials begin.

Okay, but how close is genetic science to identifying the specific genes and/or areas of the brain they want alter? — counterpunch

It's complicated: https://www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.html#devote
But which version of the ADA2b deletion variant, COMT gene, serotonin transporter gene, FAAH & FAAH OUT gene (cf. https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/the-intriguing-link-between-sensitivity-to-physical-and-psychological-pain-1.3846825) and SCN9A gene (cf. https://www.wired.com/2017/04/the-cure-for-pain/) would you want for your future children?
As somatic gene therapy matures for existing humans, which allelic combinations would you choose for yourself?

Of course, bioconservatives would maintain that the genetic crapshoot of traditional sexual reproduction is best. If they prevail, then a Darwinian biology of misery and malaise will persist indefinitely.

My point was rather that no centralized decision making system can be perfect in its implementation — Olivier5

Phasing out the biology of suffering in favour of life based on information-sensitive gradients of well-being can be "perfect" in its implementation in the same sense that getting rid of Variola major and Variola minor was "perfect" in its implementation. Without Variola major and Variola minor, there is no more smallpox. Without the molecular signature of experience below hedonic zero, there can be no more suffering. It's hard to imagine, I know.

I suspect that, were we to live in such a civilisation, our mean hedonistic expectation will simply adjust to somewhere around 95. Anything below 95 will be deemed a disappointment if not a "micro-agression", and anything above 95 will get recorded as satisfying and truly a pleasure. In short, I suspect the gradient is relative, not absolute. — Olivier5

The misconception that pain and pleasure are relative is tenacious. But we need only consider the plight of severe chronic depressives to recognise that it's false. Chronic depressives never cease to suffer even though some of their days are less dreadful than others. Hyperthymics lie at the opposite extreme.

I find it very difficult to conceive of happiness as a constant state — counterpunch

As a temperamentally depressive negative utilitarian, I find lifelong happiness hard to conceive too. But a civilisation based on gradients of superhuman bliss is technically feasible. IMO, our impending mastery of the pleasure-pain axis makes such a future civilisation likely, too, though I vacillate on credible timescales.

"Information-sensitive gradients of well-being" is more of a mouthful than "constant happiness". Nonetheless the distinction is practically important. Despite my normal British prudery, I sometimes give the example of making love. Lovemaking has peaks and troughs. But done properly, lovemaking is generically enjoyable for both parties throughout. The challenge is to elevate our hedonic range and default hedonic tone so that life is generically enjoyable – despite the dips.

because I lean toward idealism — Metaphysician Undercover

The only kind of idealism I take seriously just transposes the entire mathematical apparatus of modern physics onto an experientialist ontology: non-materialist physicalism (cf. https://www.physicalism.com). I used to assume the conjecture that the mathematical formalism of quantum field theory describes fields of sentience was untestable. How could we ever know what (if anything!) it's like to be, say, superfluid helium?
I now reckon such pessimism is premature:
https://www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.html#conpredicts

At the risk of stating the obvious, no one sympathetic to the abolitionist project need buy into my idiosyncratic speculations on quantum mind and the intrinsic nature of the physical.

A decentralized, self-regulated system is more resilient than a centrally regulated system. And that's a dimension on which Darwinian life will always trump engineered life. — Olivier5

If a global consensus emerges for compassionate stewardship of the living world, then the problem of suffering is tractable. We're not going to run out of computer power. Every cubic metre of the planet will shortly be accessible to surveillance and micromanagement – although synthetic gene drives allow the ecological option of remote management too.

On the one hand, we can imagine dystopian Orwellian scenarios – some kind of totalitarian global panopticon. But biotech also gives us the tools to create a world based on genetically preprogrammed gradients of bliss. In a world animated by information-sensitive gradients of well-being, there are no "losers" in the Darwinian sense of the term. Members of today's predatory species can benefit no less than their victims:
https://www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.html#stopkilling

Good answer. Design happier healthier babies! But where to stop? — counterpunch

We could engineer a world with hedonic range of 0 to +10 as distinct from our -10 to 0 to +10. But we could also engineer a civilisation of (schematically) +10 to +20 or (eventually) +90 to +100. Critics protest that a notional civilisation with a hedonic range of +90 to +100 would "lack contrast" compared to the rich tapestry of Darwinian life. But a hedonic range of, say, +70 to +100 will be feasible too.

Have you seen that experiment where the orgasm centre of a rat's brain was plugged into a lever the rat could press, and it pressed the lever repeatedly until it starved to death? — counterpunch

Yes:
https://www.wireheading.com/hypermotivation.html
Wireheading is not a viable solution to the problem of suffering.

the unrestrained, hedonistic pursuit of pleasure has produced terrible consequences. And your answer is, they're seeking pleasure wrong? So, what's the right way? — counterpunch

In my view, the right way to seek pleasure is through genetic recalibration of the negative-feedback mechanisms of the hedonic treadmill:
https://www.gradients.com

It's a question of timescales. Classical utilitarianism is often held to be agent‐neutral. But in the long run, it's unclear whether classical utilitarianism is consistent with a world of agents. For the classical utilitarian should be working towards an apocalyptic, AI-assisted utilitronium shockwave – some kind of all-consuming cosmic orgasm that maximises the abundance of bliss within our Hubble volume. Compare the homely dilemmas of the trolley problem. Intuitively, this kind of technological enterprise is centuries or millennia distant, so irrelevant to our lives. Yet temporal discounting is not an option for the strict classical utilitarian. Note that negative utilitarianism doesn’t entail this apocalyptic outcome. For the negative utilitarian, a transhuman civilisation based entirely on information-sensitive gradients of bliss will be ideal.

In the short-term, the practical implications of a classical utilitarian ethic are less dramatic. Given human nature, agent‐neutrality is psychologically impossible. Any attempt by legislators to enforce agent-neutrality would probably lead to worse consequences, i.e. more unhappy people. Likewise, if one is an aspiring effective altruist who gives, say, 10% of one's income to charity, then beating oneself up about not charitably giving away 90% of one's income is counterproductive. Most likely, heroic self-sacrifice will lead to "burn out" - an un-utilitarian outcome. So in practice, being a (classical or negative) utilitarian involves all sorts of messy compromises. But then real life is messy – no news here.

Should one aspire to minimise the suffering of the people we despise as much as loved ones? Yes. In practice, such impartial benevolence is impossible. But getting our theory of personal identity right can help:
https://www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.html#individualism

I was wondering what your take is on the opioid crisis. Were not all concerned hedonistic pleasure seekers? — counterpunch

The underlying cause of the opioid crisis is that we are all born endogenous opioid addicts. The neurotransmitter system most directly involved in hedonic tone is the opioid system. Human and nonhuman animals are engineered by natural selection with no durable way to satisfy our cravings. Most exogenous opioid users are ineffectively self-medicating. Exogenous opioids just activate the negative-feedback mechanisms of the CNS. A solution to the opioid crisis is going to be complicated, long-drawn-out and messy. But ACKR3 receptor blockade potentially offers the prospect of hedonic uplift for all (cf. https://www.azolifesciences.com/news/20200622/New-LI383-molecule-can-help-treat-opioid-related-disorders.aspx). More research is urgently needed. Note I'm not (yet) urging everyone to get hold of ACKR3 receptor blockers. There are too many pitfalls and unknowns.

My main point is that to me, life is the supreme value. Not pleasure or the absence of suffering or sentience, but just life. Ugly as it is. Beautiful as it is too. — Olivier5

I'm mystified why you value life per se rather than certain kinds of life. Do you really believe we should value and attempt to conserve, say, the parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulus that causes onchocerciasis a.k.a. "river blindness"? If so, why? Yes, humans are "playing god". Good. We should aim to be benevolent gods.

Thank you. You are very kind. I'm curious though. You believe there is potentially a cure for suffering, but it's not transhumanism. First, we need to define what is meant by the term "transhumanism". If we don't edit our source code, recalibrate the hedonic treadmill, and genetically change "human nature", then I'm at a loss to know how the abolitionist project can ever be realised - short of apocalyptic scenarios that are unfruitful to contemplate.

Any solution to the problem of suffering must be technically and sociologically credible. It's a daunting challenge, but I know of no alternative:
https://www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.html#abolitionismbioethics
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