On 05/06/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: The human brain doesn't function as a fully reflective system. Too > much is hard-wired and not accessible to conscious experience. Our > brains simply don't function as a peroperly integrated system. Full > reflection would enable the ability to reach into our underlying > preferences and change them.
What would happen if you had the ability to edit your mind at will? It might sound like a recipe for terminal drug addiction, because it would be possible to give yourself pleasure or satisfaction without doing anything to earn it. However, this need not necessarily be the case, because you could edit out your desire to choose this course of action if that's what you felt like doing, or even create a desire to edit out the desire (a second level desire). There is also the fact that you could as easily assign positive feelings to some project you consider intrinsically worthwhile as to idleness, so why choose idleness, or anything else you would feel guilty about? Perhaps psychopaths would choose to remain psychopaths, but most people would choose to strengthen what they consider ideal moral behaviour, since it would be possible to get their guilty pleasures more easily. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
