Scifi Illusion

[Ribald]

Today I heard someone make an argument against humans developing AI because "we would all get fat and lazy like in the movie WALL-E."

This frustrates me. 99% of people know everything they know about robotics, for instance, because they have seen movies like I Robot, Terminator, 2001 ASO, etc.

In my opinion, that is kind of pathetic, and it frustrates me to hear these people chime into discussion about the future as if they know something based on having seen a handful of movies whose plots are dramatizations of technology-gone-wrong. All they seem to be able to contribute, as a result, is vague paranoia: "WHAT IF SKYNET???!?!?"

In The Terminator, Skynet, an artificial superintelligence, goes online in 1997. Here is why it is a bad idea to get your scientific knowledge from Hollywood. Apparently in the movie, 1997 is still very 1997, barring that one exception--you know, the artificial superintelligence that scientists seem to have created at least 40 years ahead of schedule, according to even the most optimistic projections.

That's about as unrealistic as movie physics gets, and movie physics is pretty much awful without exception. Even Gravity, renowned for its realism, had numerous incongruities with reality. Other "scifi" movies are so absurdly unrealistic they might as well be movies about magic. The Core certainly comes to mind. People see these movies and are given the impression of realism when there is none whatsoever.

There is absolutely no way Skynet could have been created in 1997, or 2014, or 2024. To place an artificial superintelligence in the world of 1997 is completely out of context and gives you license to do just about anything with it you damn well please, namely making a pretty badass action movie or 3 or 4.

By the time we have the capability to make even a human level AI (which Skynet seems to have completely and conveniently leapfrogged), the world will be a completely different environment both socially and technologically. I don't think any knowledgeable person would argue that we wouldn't really know what to do with such an AI today and it might even be a disaster. It is presumable that we will have a better idea once we actually have the capability to make the thing in the first place. Things tend to converge like that. Analogously, why not have a movie where some guy in the year 1000 BC invents a car? I guess he would be pretty excited about it until he realized there were no driveable roads, no gas stations, no replacement parts, and no possibility of either for another 2900 years. Of course the real question is how the fuck someone in 1000 BC would invent a car in the first place.

You can apply this to just about any scifi movie, and it hardly ends with AI. One of my favorites is GATTACA, a movie which apparently foretells the dangers of genetic engineering because it will cause.... discrimination! As if the world we are in right now does not involve discrimination. Let's not kid ourselves: your genes are highly important toward finding a job and a mate in this world. We are unashamed genetic discriminators already.

Nevermind the obvious holes this presents. First, why would we assume that Ethan Hawke's character couldn't benefit at all from the present technology. It appears that his brother gets every last shred of benefit tech has to offer, but Hawke is left with a weak body and a heart condition that scientists are still scratching their heads over, even though they have the tech to create genetically perfect superbabies. Huh. Nor in this highly technologically advanced world can Jude Law's character be cured of paraplegia. In 2014 we can't design genetically perfect babies yet by a long shot, but we are getting pretty damn close to being able to cure spinal cord injuries. Some few people are even walking around in exoskeletons at this point. In GATTACA, Jude Law rolls around in a wheel chair. Presumably the year is somewhere in the 2020s or 2030s. Not realistic.

The point is, merely screaming out "WHAT ABOUT GATTACA!" in response to debate about genetic therapy is a fool's argument, and I want you all to be able to differentiate. There's certainly more to speak of, though. GATTACA presents these genetic designer humans as if they aren't actually a fucking miracle. How on Earth could that not be seen as a good thing? If we can help people be the fittest and healthiest they can be, we should. The only possible objection is "inequality", but like I said, inequality is already very much the case. Are we to banish all new technologies because they give the people who use them benefits that others don't get? That sounds pretty short sighted, considering these techs always fall in cost and are eventually made widely available. If you disagree, you should be prepared to block a lot of other things too. Scientists find a cure for cancer? You should be against it, too.

Inequality is a problem, yes, but it is not the answer and end of every single debate about any conceivable thing like some people think it is. Those people are annoying as shit.

As for WALL-E, my god, what a stupid movie that was. A future where we have advanced space travel technology, human level AI, and chairs that float in mid air, but we haven't figured out how to solve the problems of obesity or loss of bone density? Am I fucking retarded? Am I going crazy? I bet that almost no one who saw that movie recognized the conflict there. It's a lonely world for thinkers like me. I think I might have made that point here before, though.

Scifi always amounts to a bizarre extrapolation of the current day. Hopefully we will stop mentioning movies as talking points in discussions about the future of technology.

 

[Ribald]

By the way Terminator 2 is literally my favorite movie. I am just saying it shouldn't be used as a debate point when speaking about AI. I can't count how many times I have finished reading a news article on some robotics development and the first comment at the bottom of the page is "HERE COMES SKYNET" or something.

 

[Turniphead]

Scifi always amounts to a bizarre extrapolation of the current day. Hopefully we will stop mentioning movies as talking points in discussions about the future of technology.

(I don't disagree with you from a logical standpoint... )

Because making logically consistent fiction about the future is almost impossible(good authors don't necessarily overlap with good scientists, etc) does that mean they shoul... oh nevermind, not what you were saying /tangent


The crux of my issue with your standpoint is that I think you are discounting the importance that fiction about the future actually plays in promoting the development of science. Movies as a talking points are great, if that's the only way to get those people talking!

Science fiction creators are inspired be real science, and real scientists are inspired by science fiction(not all of them, duh).

 

[Turniphead]

By the way Terminator 2 is literally my favorite movie. I am just saying it shouldn't be used as a debate point when speaking about AI. I can't count how many times I have finished reading a news article on some robotics development and the first comment at the bottom of the page is "HERE COMES SKYNET" or something.

1. Don't read the comments.
2. Comment threads are not good places for debate.
3. Those people are not debating. Obligatory jokes are apparently obligatory(even if old/not funny).
3. Don't read the comments.

 

[Ribald]

(I don't disagree with you from a logical standpoint... )

Because making logically consistent fiction about the future is almost impossible(good authors don't necessarily overlap with good scientists, etc) does that mean they shoul... oh nevermind, not what you where saying /tangent


The crux of my issue with your standpoint is that I think you are discounting the importance that fiction about the future actually plays in promoting the development of science. Movies as a talking points are great, if that's the only way to get those people talking!

Science fiction creators are inspired be real science, and real scientists are inspired by science fiction(not all of them, duh).

I agree to an extent. Star Wars was my absolute favorite as a kid, and was what truly got me excited about space and technology. However, Star Wars isn't particularly alarmist..

So yes, I think scifi has its place and I am not completely against it. I am still kind of a fan of these things, although anymore I can't watch them without being rudely reminded of how unrealistic a portrayal of the future it always is. As a kid it was more exciting.

Btw, I do think a lot of people's comments about Skynet, Hal9000, etc are serious. People are really dumb. The other one I always hear about is people referring to the book of Revelation in the comments section, and very seriously.

 

[Hawkeye]

There appears to be a correlation between technology development and obesity.

 

[Ribald]

There appears to be a correlation between technology development and obesity.

There does appear to be, but that's why I said sci-fi is always just the present extrapolated to ridiculous lengths. With tech we will have within the next couple of decades, the solution to obesity will be completely trivial. In fact, we will be able to use it to give people the sort of health never before possible in history. Which we already do, really.

In WALL-E, every single person appears to be obese. That's a really dumb generalization of the people today. A lot of the time technology and abundance actually enables people to reach levels of fitness never possible before. Lots of Americans are fat, but also, lots of them, say, run marathons for fun. Or go to the gym every day. These are things people really couldn't have done before a hundred years ago. The range of physical activity open to everyone is also tremendous, and you see people doing things never before possible because they have the time and wealth to pursue them. Like, watch some world-class parkour. That is friggn amazing.

Even if the solution to obesity perpetually eluded us, WALL-E is absurd to project that every single person would be fat. Presumably there would be some fat people, and presumably there would be some who had excellent fitness, and some in between. I think it is almost akin to racism, actually. The creators of WALL-E wear their fat-people hatred openly on their sleeves.. it's almost like anti-fat people propaganda or something. Ha-ha, everyone in the future is a big dumb fatty! Fat = dumb and lazy, right?

I got the sense that it was pretty sanctimonious; meant to belittle society as a whole kinda like the movie Idiocracy. There are certain people out there who love to just say "EVERYONE IS DUMB THIS WORLD IS GOING TO SHIT" and not look at the finer details of the situation at all. Those people are annoying. I think they are the same people who feel the need to inject the "inequality" trump card into every single debate, actually.

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

i know from your introductory post which your position on the whole transhumanist agenda is.

but you seem to focus your attack of criticism on already weak arguments in order to depict criticism as unfounded and ill-informed.

(this is called "knocking down a straw man")

here's something to sink your teeth in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy0nEZb_dvs

if you are impatient, feel free to skip to minute 26,
but i would recommend not to.

somewhat related in terms of opening "Pandora's box"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0lMrp_ySg8

if you don't trust the above sources, maybe it will be more convincing to hear the criticism from the horse's mouth:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEaAidCmxus

singularity 1 on 1 is a regular interview format that features the most prominent figure-heads of the transhumanist movement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLqrVCi3l6E

the transhumanist program goes back at least to the 1940s...

Cyborg Finance

Technological advances in finance, particularly those relating to algorithmic trading, has increased financial speed, connectivity, reach, and complexity while simultaneously reducing its humanity.[1] Computers running software based on complex algorithms have replaced humans in many functions in the financial industry. Finance is essentially becoming an industry where machines and humans share the dominant roles – transforming modern finance into what one scholar has called, “cyborg finance.”[1] The financial regulatory system, to date, has not given cyborg finance and its emerging implications proper attention.[1]

"Speaking of a future at most only decades away, an experimenter in intelligence control asserted, “I foresee a time when we shall have the means and therefore, inevitably, the temptation to manipulate the behavior and intellectual functioning of all the people through environmental and biochemical manipulation of the brain."

"In addition, it may be possible—and tempting—to exploit for strategic-political purposes the fruits of research on the brain and on human behavior. Gordon J. F. MacDonald, a geophysicist specializing in problems of warfare, has written that accurately timed, artificially excited electronic strokes “could lead to a pattern of oscillations that produce relatively high power levels over certain regions of the earth. . . . In this way, one could develop a system that would seriously impair the brain performance of very large populations in selected regions over an extended period... No matter how deeply disturbing the thought of using the environment to manipulate behavior for national advantages to some, the technology permitting such use will very probably develop within the next few decades."

"Another threat, less overt but no less basic, confronts liberal democracy. More directly linked to the impact of technology, it involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled and directed society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite whose claim to political power would rest on allegedly superior scientific knowhow. Unhindered by the restraints of traditional liberal values, this elite would not hesitate to achieve its political ends by using the latest modern techniques for influencing public behavior and keeping society under close surveillance and control. Under such circumstances, the scientific and technological momentum of the country would not be reversed but would actually feed on the situation it exploits."

"The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieve/review by the authorities."

"In the technotronic society the trend would seem to be towards the aggregation of the individual support of millions of uncoordinated citizens, easily within the reach of magnetic and attractive personalities effectively exploiting the latest communications techniques to manipulate emotions and control reason."

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"I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

 

[Ribald]

Dude... you just posted 6 hours of video for me to watch. I have other things to do.. as much as I'd love to just answer everyone's arguments with "just read The Singularity Is Near" I know that I have to take everything I have learned and process it for you all into a few paragraphs so you can actually do something with it.

Give me something meant for me specifically, from you specifically.

 

[Hawkeye]

I think the key point here is you are trying to compare science fiction to science fact and irritating yourself in the process.

Many of the films you mentioned collapse if you attempt to apply realism to them. A couple of examples would be the inertia scene from Gravity and the ending of Sunshine (irrespective of whether you liked it or not ^^).

Another reason the people were fat in Wall-E could be a nod to the effects of low gravity on the body over prolonged periods of time. The gravity on the ship was not as strong as the gravity on Earth and that ship was out in space for multiple generations.

 

[Ribald]

-_-

 

[Turniphead]

I think the key point here is you are trying to compare science fiction to science fact and irritating yourself in the process.

To be fair, I think Ribald is also(mostly?) irritated by other people being unable to distinguish science fiction, from science fact.

 

[Turniphead]

here's something to sink your teeth in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy0nEZb_dvs

if you are impatient, feel free to skip to minute 26,
but i would recommend not to.

I watched minute 26 to 40. And a couple other random minutes.

So many strange and loaded assumptions in there...
Left brain right brain stuff... ha...
So many other things that had nothing to do with current technologies, but human power struggles in general.

"is this evolution?" Evolution is change through diversity over time, nothing more. Moral judgements need not apply.

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

I watched minute 26 to 40. And a couple other random minutes.

So many strange and loaded assumptions in there...
Left brain right brain stuff... ha...
So many other things that had nothing to do with current technologies, but human power struggles in general.

"is this evolution?" Evolution is change through diversity over time, nothing more. Moral judgements need not apply.

Well, the point that video is trying to make is:

Are we, at this moment in history, based on what we know about ourselves,
mature enough to handle such a profound and permanent alteration of our very existence and environment?

Where is the evolutionary process going when you apply the DNA from the laboratories of a privately owned, internationally operating biotech conglomerate to a global environment?

Salmon, genetically modified (hybridized with pig genes) to produce more meat than naturally capable,
have escaped into the wilderness and begun to replace wild Salmon.
Estimates say that all wild Salmon will be completely replaced by the artificial Salmon in four generations.
And we don't even have a clue yet how this will impact the eco-system on a micro scale, let alone on a macro level.

You are introducing artificial selection,
this is fundamentally different from natural selection.

We have absolutely no clue about short and, even less, long term effects.

 

[Turniphead]

Well, the point that video is trying to make is:

Are we, at this moment in history, based on what we know about ourselves,
mature enough to handle such a profound and permanent alteration of our very existence and environment?

Where is the evolutionary process going when you apply the DNA from the laboratories of a privately owned, internationally operating biotech conglomerate to a global environment?

Salmon, genetically modified (hybridized with pig genes) to produce more meat than naturally capable,
have escaped into the wilderness and begun to replace wild Salmon.
Estimates say that all wild Salmon will be completely replaced by the artificial Salmon in four generations.
And we don't even have a clue yet how this will impact the eco-system on a micro scale, let alone on a macro level.

You are introducing artificial selection,
this is fundamentally different from natural selection.

We have absolutely no clue about short and, even less, long term effects.

Humans are natural selection.

Are we mature enough for what? Not killing ourselves off? Maybe, probably not.

If we don't do it, we will just live until the sun burns out, and then we die anyway.(or in the nearer term, get hit by an asteroid).

Which way is better? Don't know. Morals again, right?

But change is the only constant.
Humans are not done evolving.


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edit:
On an emotional level, the destruction of the "natural" world(let's say non-human world), makes me weep inside. But I think it's erroneous of me to believe it's right for the world to stay in some sort of arbitrary state that I feel emotional about, in the long term.

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

Humans are natural selection.

Are we mature enough for what? Not killing ourselves off? Maybe, probably not.

If we don't do it, we will just live until the sun burns out, and then we die anyway.(or in the nearer term, get hit by an asteroid).

Which way is better? Don't know. Morals again, right?

But change is the only constant.
Humans are not done evolving.

I didn't mean that humans are at a fixed state of evolutionary process.
In fact we are pretty much at the state we were 300 000 years ago.

What i would like to distinguish from evolution is technological progress.

And trans-humanism aims to blur the lines between these two.
PERMANENTLY.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_suicide

The point is, when this program starts to get implemented,
there is no way for anyone to opt out.

The very means of its implementation will guarantee a totalitarian distribution around the planet.

If morals don't matter, why don't you start your day by raping and pillaging your way through your neighbourhood?

 

[Turniphead]

I didn't mean that humans are at a fixed state of evolutionary process.
In fact we are pretty much at the state we were 300 000 years ago.

What i would like to distinguish from evolution is technological progress.

And trans-humanism aims to blur the lines between these two.
PERMANENTLY.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_suicide

The point is, when this program starts to get implemented,
there is no way for anyone to opt out.

The very means of its implementation will guarantee a totalitarian distribution around the planet.

If morals don't matter, why don't you start your day by raping and pillaging your way through your neighbourhood?

Why is technological change seen as separate from biological change(in a big picture context)?

I didn't opt in to the way the world currently works, why would I expect that to change in the future?

Why don't I go around doing things that would obviously have negative consequences for me? Because I'm a meat machine with weird feedback mechanisms, and I besides the people I had done things to, doing things back to me, I would feel really terrible about the whole thing.

I have a hard time killing bugs...

Having a broader perspective/understanding of the world doesn't preclude the day to day shit from happening.

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

Why is technological change seen as separate from biological change(in a big picture context)?

I didn't opt in to the way the world currently works, why would I expect that to change in the future?

Why don't I go around doing things that would obviously have negative consequences for me? Because I'm a meat machine with weird feedback mechanisms, and I besides the people I had done things to, doing things back to me, I would feel really terrible about the whole thing.

I have a hard time killing bugs...

Having a broader perspective/understanding of the world doesn't preclude the day to day shit from happening.

A planetary system is not a porsche and any attempt to mentally or physically construct a coequality is coo-coo.

Technology mimics nature, but, or rather, because it is distinct from it.

Evolutionary change, for instance, is dependent on the whole natural environment, there can not be a successfull change of a species without being dependent and also effecting the whole.
A biological process.

Technological change is dependent primarily on innovation, ressources, distribution, more recently the distribution as commodity.
It is therefore a techno-socio-economical process.

Moreover, evolutionary processes apply to all species,
whereas technological change is limited to one species (as the initiator).

Therefore, by taking this imbalance, or "advantage" to extreme levels,
it becomes a matter of specieist superiority.

 

[Turniphead]

A planetary system is not a porsche and any attempt to mentally or physically construct a coequality is coo-coo.

Don't understand what you are saying...
I kind of like James Lovelock's "Gaia" theory... but I'm not completely sold.
Are you saying, I'm saying the planet is like a car? I'm not, I'm saying it's the opposite, and the idea that we have - or should have - control is absurd.

Technology mimics nature, but, or rather, because it is distinct from it.

Evolutionary change, for instance, is dependent on the whole natural environment, there can not be a successfull change of a species without being dependent and also effecting the whole.
A biological process.

Technological change is dependent primarily on innovation, ressources, distribution, more recently the distribution as commodity.
It is therefore a techno-socio-economical process.

Moreover, evolutionary processes apply to all species,
whereas technological change is limited to one species (as the initiator).

Ok. I guess I view that as an extension, rather than a distinction. It's still just change.

Therefore, by taking this imbalance, or "advantage" to extreme levels,
it becomes a matter of specieist superiority.

Okay, and... this doesn't happen already? Or it's somehow a bad thing?

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

Are you saying, I'm saying the planet is like a car? I'm not, I'm saying it's the opposite, and the idea that we have - or should have - control is absurd.

If control is absurd, why should we collectively invest huge amounts of money into financing the coming about of the "Singularity"?
As i have tried to point out before,
this will make available tools of control at the hands of the current elite, which are thousandfold more sophisticated and encompassing than what is currently available.

Ok. I guess I view that as an extension, rather than a distinction. It's still just change.

A meteor impact and building a bridge also have a common component of change.
But the quality of change is not identical to the essence of the objects.

Okay, and... this doesn't happen already? Or it's somehow a bad thing?

The rate at which we are destroying our home planet is already severe enough,
but to put autonomous artificial life forms capable of altering and replacing the biosphere is just megalomanic.

 

[Turniphead]

If control is absurd, why should we collectively invest huge amounts of money into financing the coming about of the "Singularity"?
As i have tried to point out before,
this will make available tools of control at the hands of the current elite, which are thousandfold more sophisticated and encompassing than what is currently available.

I'm not saying we should try to make it happen, I'm saying we shouldn't worry if it does happen. You are saying we have some sort of control about whether it happens...
and we might a bit, I guess, but in the long run? Unlikely.

A meteor impact and building a bridge also have a common component of change.
But the quality of change is not identical to the essence of the objects.

The rate at which we are destroying our home planet is already severe enough,
but to put autonomous artificial life forms capable of altering and replacing the biosphere is just megalomanic.

So what is your goal, preserve the planet for as long as possible?

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

I'm not saying we should try to make it happen, I'm saying we shouldn't worry if it does happen. You are saying we have some sort of control about whether it happens...
and we might a bit, I guess, but in the long run? Unlikely.

Well, of course, we as the human species have the power to determine our future.

So what is your goal, preserve the planet for as long as possible?

I'd say let's fix the grave problems we already have accumulated over the centuries before we throw ourselves into another "great adventure" which very likely will overwhelm us and the entire life on the planet.

 

[The Void]

Bring Deus Ex Human Revolution to real life.
It will be boring, if all gets peaceful and nice,
distaster must happen, if no one mess up, I will.
I can let earth be in peace.
Everyone has to pay for my birth.

 

[The Void]

Bring Deus Ex Human Revolution to real life.
It will be boring, if all gets peaceful and nice,
distaster must happen, if no one mess up, I will.
I can let earth be in peace.
Everyone has to pay for my birth.

Dont you ever get tired of uttering all these redundant nonsense?

 

[The Void]

Science is neutral. It can be used to result harmony, peace, sustainance,
it can be used, for destruction, chaos, suffering,
the easterns may argue that science is hindering natural processes (which may be true to some extent) but it is the natural process that lead humans to bring out the scientific method....
some form of poop may always remain, pleasure and suffering contrasts each other,
without suffering there would not be a measure of pleasure, their would not be any value of it,
without some conflict there will be no life, it is the sense of wrongness, the discontenment that acts as the drive and motivation to live life, to self-actualize, fight, become something,

 

[Ribald]

Science is neutral. It can be used to result harmony, peace, sustainance,
it can be used, for destruction, chaos, suffering,
the easterns may argue that science is hindering natural processes (which may be true to some extent) but it is the natural process that lead humans to bring out the scientific method....
some form of poop may always remain, pleasure and suffering contrasts each other,
without suffering there would not be a measure of pleasure, their would not be any value of it,
without some conflict there will be no life, it is the sense of wrongness, the discontenment that acts as the drive and motivation to live life, to self-actualize, fight, become something,

I hate to burst your bubble, but suffering actually is not necessary. Now, why do I feel like you are going to resist this and defend the existence of suffering as if you wouldn't want to not suffer? Actually, I can answer that. I will.

The "suffering and pleasure must balance in the end because you must know one to know the other" hypothesis is basically completely wrong. How much I have suffered before has absolutely nothing to do with anything in terms of the pleasure I experience. Some people live predominantly happy lives. Some people live depressed lives.

The brain can be stimulated such that it produces full-body orgasmic bliss that lasts for however long the stimulation continues without getting boring or dulling. Happiness and boredom are, in fact, mutually exclusive.

In other words, once we know how to neurologically, we will have the means to make ourselves invincibly happy. This doesn't even mean we will necessarily be sitting around with our eyes rolled back in our heads. Different neurotransmitters provide different types of happiness. Ones like mesolimbic dopamine provide motivated productivity.

You are in a pro-death, pro-suffering trance, and contrary to what you probably believe, that makes you the same as most (but a shrinking number of) people. The reason for that is you feel the need to rationalize something if it is unavoidable. If life must involve suffering and death, why not try to convince yourself that those are good things, that experiencing them enhances your experience of pleasure and life?

It's a strategy that has perhaps even been helpful for all of history, when those things were inevitable, but with the coming bio, nano, and AI revolutions, we will transcend them. We will become the advanced alien civilization that we have always pictured ourselves getting contacted by, but never imagined becoming ourselves.

Your act is kinda obvious. You post about suffering and death being good when no one even asked. It is clear that your constant attempt to think you are "facing" those things is actually your highest effort to turn them into something they are not: good. Suffering is by definition bad. Once we get rid of it, life will be blissful and thoroughly happy, never boring. On the contrary, it will be orders of magnitude more majestic and diverse. Death is a tragic loss, if not for the one who dies, the people who lose him. To make matters worse it is preceded by the slow, painful process of aging. We'll take care of that, too.

If you remain pro-suffering, kindly keep it to yourself. I don't know about you, but I would rather not suffer. I don't find purpose in suffering. God forbid someone like you ever gets power--a leader who believes suffering and death is good? That's just stupid. Why don't you go live in the woods or something and live out your philosophy? The rest of us will live out ours, you know, the one that involves as little suffering and death as possible.

You really shouldn't even respond if you are going to argue. I am so confident, I am 100% sure that there is no possible argument you could make other than agreeing with me that I will ever listen to.

 

[Hawkeye]

I see what you're saying, but the brain ignores consistent stimuli. It is the precise reason we can't see the capillaries in our eyes all the time. This also explains why we have a number of hobbies, rather than just one.

If you don't work a five day week, you'll find that weekends are nothing to be excited about. The "Friday feeling" means nothing to you.

You can't be happy all the time, not even the Dalai Lama is always happy.

As The Void mentioned, you need something to gauge happiness. Suffering is usually interpreted to mean extreme pain, but he is right in terms of pain for pleasure.

 

[Ribald]

I see what you're saying, but the brain ignores consistent stimuli. It is the precise reason we can't see the capillaries in our eyes all the time. This also explains why we have a number of hobbies, rather than just one.

If you don't work a five day week, you'll find that weekends are nothing to be excited about. The "Friday feeling" means nothing to you.

You can't be happy all the time, not even the Dalai Lama is always happy.

As The Void mentioned, you need something to gauge happiness. Suffering is usually interpreted to mean extreme pain, but he is right in terms of pain for pleasure.

Proof of concept. Thankfully, you're wrong.

 

[Hawkeye]

Proof of concept. Thankfully, you're wrong.

This does not mean it's true, nor does it guarantee I'm wrong as it's purely theoretical...

The opening statement from the Dalai Lama shows how flawed it is. It results in destimulation of happiness because there is nothing to gauge it.

What's the theoretical maximum of pure bliss? We don't know. Should the empirical methodology of science be used to find out? No research proposal with that aim has yet gained funding. How accurately can pleasure and pain be quantified on a single unidimensional scale? This is disputable, albeit more as a complication than a fundamental obstacle to the abolitionist project. What fail-safe genetic mechanisms can prevent - or today sometimes fail to prevent - extreme happiness spiralling off instead into psychotic mania? Again, we're still not sure. This challenge must be met before we can safely explore germline therapy for hereditary mental superhealth.

lol...



What you're after is comfortable numbness.

 

[The Void]

I hate to burst your bubble, but suffering actually is not necessary. Now, why do I feel like you are going to resist this and defend the existence of suffering as if you wouldn't want to not suffer? Actually, I can answer that. I will.

The "suffering and pleasure must balance in the end because you must know one to know the other" hypothesis is basically completely wrong. How much I have suffered before has absolutely nothing to do with anything in terms of the pleasure I experience. Some people live predominantly happy lives. Some people live depressed lives.

The brain can be stimulated such that it produces full-body orgasmic bliss that lasts for however long the stimulation continues without getting boring or dulling. Happiness and boredom are, in fact, mutually exclusive.

In other words, once we know how to neurologically, we will have the means to make ourselves invincibly happy. This doesn't even mean we will necessarily be sitting around with our eyes rolled back in our heads. Different neurotransmitters provide different types of happiness. Ones like mesolimbic dopamine provide motivated productivity.

You are in a pro-death, pro-suffering trance, and contrary to what you probably believe, that makes you the same as most (but a shrinking number of) people. The reason for that is you feel the need to rationalize something if it is unavoidable. If life must involve suffering and death, why not try to convince yourself that those are good things, that experiencing them enhances your experience of pleasure and life?

It's a strategy that has perhaps even been helpful for all of history, when those things were inevitable, but with the coming bio, nano, and AI revolutions, we will transcend them. We will become the advanced alien civilization that we have always pictured ourselves getting contacted by, but never imagined becoming ourselves.

Your act is kinda obvious. You post about suffering and death being good when no one even asked. It is clear that your constant attempt to think you are "facing" those things is actually your highest effort to turn them into something they are not: good. Suffering is by definition bad. Once we get rid of it, life will be blissful and thoroughly happy, never boring. On the contrary, it will be orders of magnitude more majestic and diverse. Death is a tragic loss, if not for the one who dies, the people who lose him. To make matters worse it is preceded by the slow, painful process of aging. We'll take care of that, too.

If you remain pro-suffering, kindly keep it to yourself. I don't know about you, but I would rather not suffer. I don't find purpose in suffering. God forbid someone like you ever gets power--a leader who believes suffering and death is good? That's just stupid. Why don't you go live in the woods or something and live out your philosophy? The rest of us will live out ours, you know, the one that involves as little suffering and death as possible.

You really shouldn't even respond if you are going to argue. I am so confident, I am 100% sure that there is no possible argument you could make other than agreeing with me that I will ever listen to.

Thank you for wake me up, I got a little brainwashed by myself yesterday,
I remember my past beliefs again now.
Yes some of the intentions of my words were wrong, but the lines I wrote are still valid in itself, because it doesn't involve much specifications.
I am a psychopath, so if I become a leader I will burn everyone, not because I believe suffering is good but because I am a psychopath.
I never said suffering is good, or purposeful, because for suffering to have purpose, life have to have purpose too.
In fact it is been long ever since I had surpassed suffering and happiness and mastered my own mind, (i didnt do it, no free will, it happened), I am too far beyond to have much connection with humanity, emotions, sufferings and pointless shits.
I merely said, suffering and pleasure contrasts each other, that does not mean white cannot exist without black and in itself it is true that pleasure will not have any value without suffering, but this line makes no point, it is redundant, because, values are not needed, pleasure is pleasure...so even though the statement as redundant it was not invalid but partly invalid because values and words like these are empty meaningless concepts.

There are different forms of pleasure.
One pleasure is relief from suffering, or the pleasure of achievement of something after going through a lot of suffering.

Those type of pleasures will go of course but who needs them? But these will
remove one dimension of life, but so what one dimension removed, another added...

but still emotions, tragedy, sadness, art, stories, conflict all of these will take a big attack then, the emo stories, art, movies, all of them will lose it value, but so what? I dont watch them anyway....they are boring....and if people can be entertained without them, we dont need them right?

I see the point, I made similar point before in argument 'against' the poinfulness of suffering, and justification of injustice god thats why I thanked you to remind myself about myself....

An infinite bliss without boredom and death........this state of mind, is it possible or not, we will see what it does only when it will be made possible, rite now I dont care, mental states are more like toys to me, I play with them, I am already beyond them anyway,

we will see where that states truly leads too when it will be possible.....
(the biggest problem is mind get too quickly accustomed to stuff, so if that limiter is removed, there will be no problem and contrast, boredom or whatever, but that again may give rise to adverse effect, in the end, it may be possible to create that state, but will it be really possible to create such states with no adverse effect... we may see about that)

Now let us come to the next part, about the 'discontentment'....

What motivated you to quote my post and write this?
You saw my post, you perhaps thought: how void of intelligence the void is,
lets teach this stupid bastards some real shits...

my stupidity disturbed you, a discontentment arose within you that propelled you to write this.

Like what is motivating the scientists to even make all these stuff?
Discontentment with what there is.

Imagine the perfect pleasure, probably too much pleasure that will probably make some hands and legs to vibrate, but then imagine that situation.

You know you will be in that state for infinity. there will be no boredom no nothing.
So now in that state, why would you need to go buy some ice cream, go and chat with friends, or socialize, or there will be no reason to improve yourself, study or seek knowledge, or anything,

Indeed, often it is the upliftment feeling that brings the fire, the motivation to do stuff, instead of lying depressed like oh whatever....

but discontentment also have to work parallely,
I am using the word discontentment for lack of better word,
you can say relatively less content than a desired state,

now why will I want to eat something if it will not make me feel better (or atleast sustain my life)? If infinite pleasure is insured, then there is no need to do anything, no desire will arise, because desire arises from discontentment...

now upliftment and motivations from slight discontentment is okay when it is balanced, but in extreme upliftment, how can there be motivations.

It is not all black and white,
I have noticed that often it is the discontentment that keep me uplifted.
I was depressed the most when I had lost all my desires (curse you Buddha),


but that thing, is why motivation is necessary, if everyone gets empathy, extreme bliss, no-boredom, and everything eternally, it will be paradise, and nothing else is necessary, the thing is then all will become like stones, but is that bad? no...

 

[Ribald]

This does not mean it's true, nor does it guarantee I'm wrong as it's purely theoretical...

The opening statement from the Dalai Lama shows how flawed it is. It results in destimulation of happiness because there is nothing to gauge it.

Uh, what? The whole point of the link was to show this is not theoretical. Experiments have been completed.

And what exactly is destimulation?

What you're after is comfortable numbness.

I would ask if you read the article, but you quoted it, so I'm just really confused. The author specifically addresses this pretty much right off the bat in speaking about soma, and then throughout the article. Suffice it to say, that is not what I'm after, nor is it what the author is after, nor is it what transhumanists are after.

 

[The Void]

Thank you for wake me up, I got a little brainwashed by myself yesterday,
I remember my past beliefs again now.
Yes some of the intentions of my words were wrong, but the lines I wrote are still valid in itself, because it doesn't involve much specifications.
I am a psychopath, so if I become a leader I will burn everyone, not because I believe suffering is good but because I am a psychopath.
I never said suffering is good, or purposeful, because for suffering to have purpose, life have to have purpose too.
In fact it is been long ever since I had surpassed suffering and happiness and mastered my own mind, (i didnt do it, no free will, it happened), I am too far beyond to have much connection with humanity, emotions, sufferings and pointless shits.
I merely said, suffering and pleasure contrasts each other, that does not mean white cannot exist without black and in itself it is true that pleasure will not have any value without suffering, but this line makes no point, it is redundant, because, values are not needed, pleasure is pleasure...so even though the statement as redundant it was not invalid but partly invalid because values and words like these are empty meaningless concepts.

There are different forms of pleasure.
One pleasure is relief from suffering, or the pleasure of achievement of something after going through a lot of suffering.

Those type of pleasures will go of course but who needs them? But these will
remove one dimension of life, but so what one dimension removed, another added...

but still emotions, tragedy, sadness, art, stories, conflict all of these will take a big attack then, the emo stories, art, movies, all of them will lose it value, but so what? I dont watch them anyway....they are boring....and if people can be entertained without them, we dont need them right?

I see the point, I made similar point before in argument 'against' the poinfulness of suffering, and justification of injustice god thats why I thanked you to remind myself about myself....

An infinite bliss without boredom and death........this state of mind, is it possible or not, we will see what it does only when it will be made possible, rite now I dont care, mental states are more like toys to me, I play with them, I am already beyond them anyway,

we will see where that states truly leads too when it will be possible.....
(the biggest problem is mind get too quickly accustomed to stuff, so if that limiter is removed, there will be no problem and contrast, boredom or whatever, but that again may give rise to adverse effect, in the end, it may be possible to create that state, but will it be really possible to create such states with no adverse effect... we may see about that)

Now let us come to the next part, about the 'discontentment'....

What motivated you to quote my post and write this?
You saw my post, you perhaps thought: how void of intelligence the void is,
lets teach this stupid bastards some real shits...

my stupidity disturbed you, a discontentment arose within you that propelled you to write this.

Like what is motivating the scientists to even make all these stuff?
Discontentment with what there is.

Imagine the perfect pleasure, probably too much pleasure that will probably make some hands and legs to vibrate, but then imagine that situation.

You know you will be in that state for infinity. there will be no boredom no nothing.
So now in that state, why would you need to go buy some ice cream, go and chat with friends, or socialize, or there will be no reason to improve yourself, study or seek knowledge, or anything,

Indeed, often it is the upliftment feeling that brings the fire, the motivation to do stuff, instead of lying depressed like oh whatever....

but discontentment also have to work parallely,
I am using the word discontentment for lack of better word,
you can say relatively less content than a desired state,

now why will I want to eat something if it will not make me feel better (or atleast sustain my life)? If infinite pleasure is insured, then there is no need to do anything, no desire will arise, because desire arises from discontentment...

now upliftment and motivations from slight discontentment is okay when it is balanced, but in extreme upliftment, how can there be motivations.

It is not all black and white,
I have noticed that often it is the discontentment that keep me uplifted.
I was depressed the most when I had lost all my desires (curse you Buddha),


but that thing, is why motivation is necessary, if everyone gets empathy, extreme bliss, no-boredom, and everything eternally, it will be paradise, and nothing else is necessary, the thing is then all will become like stones, but is that bad? no...

so discontentment can be motivating and pleasant too....
I see you are talking about the state where all of these comes parallely,
motivation, pleasure, and no boredom..... it can be an ideal solution, to shit, (if worls out as planned)
but we will see.... what happens (or we will not be alive for so long),

 

[The Void]

so discontentment can be motivating and pleasant too....
I see you are talking about the state where all of these comes parallely,
motivation, pleasure, and no boredom..... it can be an ideal solution, to shit, (if works out as planned)
but we will see.... what happens (or we will not be alive for so long),

By you I addressed ribald not the void,

 

[Ribald]

It's not that discontentment is motivating, it's that more of a good thing is motivating. We work for reward as well as we work to avoid pain.

In the article I liked, Pearce proposes that instead of infinite maximal bliss, we will one day be motivated by gradients of bliss. Some happiness is stronger than other happiness.

 

[The Void]

It's not that discontentment is motivating, it's that more of a good thing is motivating. We work for reward as well as we work to avoid pain.

In the article I liked, Pearce proposes that instead of infinite maximal bliss, we will one day be motivated by gradients of bliss. Some happiness is stronger than other happiness.

Great. I agree.

 

[Hawkeye]

It's not that discontentment is motivating, it's that more of a good thing is motivating. We work for reward as well as we work to avoid pain.

In the article I liked, Pearce proposes that instead of infinite maximal bliss, we will one day be motivated by gradients of bliss. Some happiness is stronger than other happiness.

We live by this today... The gradient goes from unhappy to bliss.

You can't have a gradient of happiness that does not include unhappiness. The link you posted even mentions this as an issue and that they have no idea how to solve it.

I agree that there are differing levels of happiness (and that we can manufacture happiness pills), but they are on a scale that uses unhappiness as a minimum in order to quantify the other emotional states.

Adrenaline makes us stronger, so why not use it all the time?


The more you take drugs/alcohol, the higher the dose you have to take in order to reach the same high/drunkness. - destimulation.

 

[Latte]

Then why can there be unhappiness without happiness =(((((


;_;;;;;;

;;;;_;;;;;;

 

[Ribald]

We live by this today... The gradient goes from unhappy to bliss.

You can't have a gradient of happiness that does not include unhappiness. The link you posted even mentions this as an issue and that they have no idea how to solve it.

I agree that there are differing levels of happiness, but they are on a scale that uses unhappiness as a minimum in order to quantify the other emotional states.

Not sure why you are so bent on arguing for suffering...

I agree that wellbeing could be put on a scale. I do not think that many people have experienced the absolute highs and lows of that scale - in other words, you can occupy part of the scale, but not all of it, and live an entire life of having not known various depths of suffering or wellbeing. We could engineer our lives such that we live on ever higher parts of the scale, without knowing the lowest depths of it.

Have you ever been burned at the stake? Have you ever been flayed alive? No--then I'm guessing you would agree that the lowest parts of the scale we speak of do not need to be experienced for us to know happiness. For me to know the all-consuming bliss of orgasm, must I also be tortured in an equivalently all-consuming way? No.

We can definitely eliminate the experience of suffering such that lives can and will be lived with no suffering in them. Life could just consist of fun, relaxation, sensuality, etc. and there would still be contrast, just not with suffering. We can still compare between "good" and "better" without having to know "bad".

 

[Hawkeye]

I'm not arguing for suffering. I even said that it was the wrong word because it often implies extreme pain. The Void mentioned suffering.

Boredom is a form of pain.

 

[Ribald]

I'm not arguing for suffering. I even said that it was the wrong word because it often implies extreme pain. The Void mentioned suffering.

Boredom is a form of pain.

I'm not saying you're advocating for it, but you do seem to be saying that it must happen and we will never eliminate it.

Boredom is not going to be a problem for 2 reasons.

1. We will not run out of new things to do. This mistake is rooted in people failing to account for change in their projections of time. Life will not be like it is in 2014 forever.

2. We will determine the biochemical substrates of boredom itself and simply write it out in favor of more pleasant emotions and motivations.

 

[Hawkeye]

We know why we get bored. We also know how to fix it. We still get bored. Even billionaires get bored and they can literally do what ever they want.

Imagine if you loved eating Jam sandwiches and then found out that you'd be eating them three times a day for the next 50 years. I think the novelty and happiness factor would decline over time.

There is a scene in the Matrix where Agent Smith is talking about an earlier simulation and how it was designed to imitate paradise, but it was disastrous because everyone rejected it.

 

[Latte]

We know why we get bored. We also know how to fix it. We still get bored. Even billionaires get bored and they can literally do what ever they want.

Imagine if you loved eating Jam sandwiches and then found out that you'd be eating them three times a day for the next 50 years. I think the novelty and happiness factor would decline over time.

There is a scene in the Matrix where Agent Smith is talking about an earlier simulation and how it was designed to imitate paradise, but it was disastrous because everyone rejected it.

The thing is, the how of being bored works in some manner. Remove the wheel of a unicycle and it can't roll anymore.

That something works in some manner necessitates the reality that the mechanisms through which it works are made up of or are somethings. Somethings which can be changed or broken/removed.

If breaking or modifying any of the necessary mechanisms through which various kinds of suffering can respectively arise results in breaking the mechanisms through which various kinds of feelsgood.png must arise, they are linked in the relationship you describe, but for reasons that don't have to do with contrast.

 

[Ribald]

We know why we get bored. We also know how to fix it. We still get bored. Even billionaires get bored and they can literally do what ever they want.

Billionaires are still subject to the hedonic treadmill of the Darwinian mind. The answer will not come short of a biotechnological cure, no matter how much money one has.

Imagine if you loved eating Jam sandwiches and then found out that you'd be eating them three times a day for the next 50 years. I think the novelty and happiness factor would decline over time.

Uh... what is this supposed to apply to? We aren't sentenced to the same thing forever. There will always be novelty.

There is a scene in the Matrix where Agent Smith is talking about an earlier simulation and how it was designed to imitate paradise, but it was disastrous because everyone rejected it.

Right, and that's a movie. I think I made a thread about how you shouldn't use Hollywood to reason about real life. WAIT... that is this thread.

 

[Latte]

oh, wait...

damn you hawkeye.

 

[Hawkeye]

You can curb boredom by changing the stimulus, but only for so long. Then you have to repeat the process. You're not eliminating boredom here, all you're doing is reducing the amount of time a person is bored/unhappy for.

If you were happy all the time, there would be no need to alter the stimulus; however, as we get bored, the stimulus will inevitably have to be changed. Therefore, it is impossible to be happy all the time, but you can be happy most of the time.

There could even come a point where suffering will be desired. Then what?

 

[TimeAsylums]

You can curb boredom by changing the stimulus, but only for so long. Then you have to repeat the process. You're not eliminating boredom here, all you're doing is reducing the amount of time a person is bored/unhappy for.

If you were happy all the time, there would be no need to alter the stimulus; however, as we get bored, the stimulus will inevitably have to be changed. Therefore, it is impossible to be happy all the time, but you can be happy most of the time.

There could even come a point where suffering will be desired. Then what?

+1

life

 

[The Void]

There could even come a point where suffering will be desired. Then what?

I sometimes come to that point o_0

 

[TimeAsylums]

I sometimes come to that point o_0

then you should be get out of your nihilistic circle

 

[The Void]

I'm not saying you're advocating for it, but you do seem to be saying that it must happen and we will never eliminate it.

Boredom is not going to be a problem for 2 reasons.

1. We will not run out of new things to do. This mistake is rooted in people failing to account for change in their projections of time. Life will not be like it is in 2014 forever.

That will not work for me.

2. We will determine the biochemical substrates of boredom itself and simply write it out in favor of more pleasant emotions and motivations.

That is the only hope.

I want to, eat Manchurian Fried Rice, but too lazy to stand up and buy it.
This discontentment makes me keep going.
When I become fully content, and the void in me gets filled, that is when the real void occurs in me.

 

[The Void]

I am not really sure that boredom can be rooted out like that. I guess it is related to memory.
The more memory and the more experience I have with something, the more boring it is.
At first it is all interesting, and then the mind, gets too used to it.
But can boredom be rooted out without altering memories?
When you master a game get some 300 damage in a rpg game and kill monsters at one hit, there remains no purpose to it anymore, the journey is complete,
the moment spent seeking it is gone, will the mind, really can play on the game without boredom after that, which such skill is achieved, the fun is in the journey, in improving the skill,

rooting out boredom may not be so simple, (while keeping humans still as normal humans),
All these kinda sound too high expectations, if it works it works, but I really cant help but doubt it, lots of things can be related to lots of things, eliminitating one bad thing may eliminate one important thing too, it is not all so black and white after all....

Being in a pleasure state 24/7 will lose its value, you never live feeling like it is all so special 24/7, even buddha messes up, the mind will get accustomed to it, evolution will do it,

It can be analyzed from history,

human society never really becomes truly perfect,

with solutions to one problem even more problems appeared, medicine improving, health decreasing, humans getting too dependant, but science, comes up with solutions, but again worse problems arise, it is an eternal cycle, if what you say works out then great, but I am not sure....

Now people may live in more comfort and all, but now even sillier things depresses people,
now people get even more easily depressed,

but old days, were not so golden either, slaves, wars, bla bla bla,

something progresses, something congresses,