Re: Progress and Happiness
On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 5:18 PM, benjayk benjamin.jaku...@googlemail.com wrote: Jason Resch-2 wrote: I've posted this link before, and it is a long read, but I think it is a great piece which shows what technology ultimately can accomplish: http://frombob.to/you/aconvers.html I like the story. In my opinion it potrays advanced beings too much like human beings with more possibilities. But this is hard or impossible to avoid, as we can potray no concrete scenario that is totally unlike everything we know, anymore than worms can imagine human experience, obviously. I don't believe advanced beings will play around more or less aimlessly. They will have a very clear idea of what they want and how to achieve it. Why would you play roleplaying games that virtually set you back into the past for some time, if you can constantly creatively self-improve in a way that your very next experience will be mindblowingly different and better and more insightful than your current one? Another good story along these lines is Cory Doctorow and Benjamin Rosenbaum's True Names. http://craphound.com/?p=2021 Here's the first installment of a podcast reading of a new novella that I co-wrote with Hugo- and Nebula-nominee Benjamin Rosenbaum. The story's a big, 32,000-word piece called True Names (in homage to Vernor Vinge's famous story of the same name), and it involves the galactic wars between vast, post-Singularity intelligences that are competing to corner the universe's supply of computation before the heat-death of the universe. Rex -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
That's a refreshingly new take on evolution! At least, I can say for myself that my preference for junk food is evolving to a preference for fruits and vegetables :) On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 12:04 AM, Rex Allen rexallen31...@gmail.com wrote: If evolution by natural selection were correct, then it seems to me that if the overall environment remained relatively stable for an extended period of time - then regardless of how it ended up, humans would be at about same level of happiness. A paradise or a hell, the species should evolve towards the same overall happiness level. We can only be excessively happy, or excessively unhappy, in a world that we aren't well adapted to. My reasoning is that happiness serves a purpose...it motivates us to do things that enhance our reproductive success. Unhappiness also serves a purpose...it motivates us to avoid things that decrease our reproductive success. Happiness is useless as a motivational tool if it's too hard *or* too easy to achieve. Unhappiness is useless as a motivational tool if it's too hard *or* too easy to avoid. There has to be some optimum motivational mix of happiness and unhappiness...and I'd think it's always approximately the same mix. Even in a hellish world, humans would be about as happy as they would be in a paradise...once they (as a species) had adapted. Which brings me to my next point. IF this evolutionary theory were true, then scientific advancements only increase human happiness to the extent that it puts us into situations that we're not well adapted to. AND, given enough time (and mutation), we should adapt to all scientific advancements...and a key part of this adaptation will be to reduce the amount of happiness that they generate. We can only be happier than cavemen when we are in a situation that we are not well adapted to. For instance, food. Most people really like sweets and salty greasy foods. Much more than they like bland vegetables and whatnot. The acquisition of junk food makes us happy *because* those things were hard to acquire a few hundred years ago...and if you're living in resource-poor circumstances, then calories and salt are just what the doctor ordered. BUT...we're now out of equilibrium. Junk food is at least as easy to get as vegetables, if not easier. So our evolved preferences push us to consume more than is good for us. Given time, and if we allowed heart disease and diabetes to do their work, the human race would eventually lose their taste for such unhealthy fare, as those with genetic tendencies in that direction died off. Anticipating a greasy meal of pizza and consuming it would no longer make us as happy. Because that happiness is too easily satisfied to provide the optimal level of motivation. In the future, I would think that our taste for junk food will decrease while our taste for vegetables and fruit will increase. Further, this adjustment process isn't just true of food. It should be true of everything. Even something that IS good for us will cause less happiness if its easily available, because there's no real harm in not being highly motivated to get it - since you'll get it even if you're relatively indifferent to it. Also, even good things can become detrimental if over-indulged in. So, over time entropy will eat away at the structure that underlies the desire for that thing. Ya? Rex -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
That's a refreshingly new take on evolution! At least, I can say for myself that my preference for junk food is evolving to a preference for fruits and vegetables :) On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 12:04 AM, Rex Allen rexallen31...@gmail.com wrote: If evolution by natural selection were correct, then it seems to me that if the overall environment remained relatively stable for an extended period of time - then regardless of how it ended up, humans would be at about same level of happiness. A paradise or a hell, the species should evolve towards the same overall happiness level. We can only be excessively happy, or excessively unhappy, in a world that we aren't well adapted to. My reasoning is that happiness serves a purpose...it motivates us to do things that enhance our reproductive success. Unhappiness also serves a purpose...it motivates us to avoid things that decrease our reproductive success. Happiness is useless as a motivational tool if it's too hard *or* too easy to achieve. Unhappiness is useless as a motivational tool if it's too hard *or* too easy to avoid. There has to be some optimum motivational mix of happiness and unhappiness...and I'd think it's always approximately the same mix. Even in a hellish world, humans would be about as happy as they would be in a paradise...once they (as a species) had adapted. Which brings me to my next point. IF this evolutionary theory were true, then scientific advancements only increase human happiness to the extent that it puts us into situations that we're not well adapted to. AND, given enough time (and mutation), we should adapt to all scientific advancements...and a key part of this adaptation will be to reduce the amount of happiness that they generate. We can only be happier than cavemen when we are in a situation that we are not well adapted to. For instance, food. Most people really like sweets and salty greasy foods. Much more than they like bland vegetables and whatnot. The acquisition of junk food makes us happy *because* those things were hard to acquire a few hundred years ago...and if you're living in resource-poor circumstances, then calories and salt are just what the doctor ordered. BUT...we're now out of equilibrium. Junk food is at least as easy to get as vegetables, if not easier. So our evolved preferences push us to consume more than is good for us. Given time, and if we allowed heart disease and diabetes to do their work, the human race would eventually lose their taste for such unhealthy fare, as those with genetic tendencies in that direction died off. Anticipating a greasy meal of pizza and consuming it would no longer make us as happy. Because that happiness is too easily satisfied to provide the optimal level of motivation. In the future, I would think that our taste for junk food will decrease while our taste for vegetables and fruit will increase. Further, this adjustment process isn't just true of food. It should be true of everything. Even something that IS good for us will cause less happiness if its easily available, because there's no real harm in not being highly motivated to get it - since you'll get it even if you're relatively indifferent to it. Also, even good things can become detrimental if over-indulged in. So, over time entropy will eat away at the structure that underlies the desire for that thing. Ya? Rex -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 2:06 PM, Pilar Morales pilarmorales...@gmail.com wrote: Hello Rex, thank you for generating this tread. Nice subject title. My comments below On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 3:04 PM, Rex Allen rexallen31...@gmail.com wrote: Even something that IS good for us will cause less happiness if its easily available, because there's no real harm in not being highly motivated to get it - since you'll get it even if you're relatively indifferent to it. Also, even good things can become detrimental if over-indulged in. So, over time entropy will eat away at the structure that underlies the desire for that thing. That is such a predominant masculine trait :) not to say that it is exclusively for males. Some people have a hard time valuing something that was easily obtained, for them, reciprocate love at first sight is probably out of the question. Our ancestors had to fight for desirable things, desirable lands, desirable women, desirable outcomes. Right! So I think there were two main points to my original post: 1) The hedonic treadmill operates at the level of the species as well as at the level of the individual, though for different reasons and by different mechanisms. 2) Any aspect of a species that doesn't contribute to increasing reproductive fitness (and isn't a spandrel), will eventually be mutated away. This includes happiness, pleasure, pain, what have you. And then, there's a further point: It seems unlikely that we'll ever escape this treadmill, since even if we've overcome all other challenges we'll still have each other to compete with. Rex -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
On 23 Jun 2011, at 18:27, Rex Allen wrote: On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 2:06 PM, Pilar Morales pilarmorales...@gmail.com wrote: Hello Rex, thank you for generating this tread. Nice subject title. My comments below On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 3:04 PM, Rex Allen rexallen31...@gmail.com wrote: Even something that IS good for us will cause less happiness if its easily available, because there's no real harm in not being highly motivated to get it - since you'll get it even if you're relatively indifferent to it. Also, even good things can become detrimental if over-indulged in. So, over time entropy will eat away at the structure that underlies the desire for that thing. That is such a predominant masculine trait :) not to say that it is exclusively for males. Some people have a hard time valuing something that was easily obtained, for them, reciprocate love at first sight is probably out of the question. Our ancestors had to fight for desirable things, desirable lands, desirable women, desirable outcomes. Right! So I think there were two main points to my original post: 1) The hedonic treadmill operates at the level of the species as well as at the level of the individual, though for different reasons and by different mechanisms. 2) Any aspect of a species that doesn't contribute to increasing reproductive fitness (and isn't a spandrel), will eventually be mutated away. This includes happiness, pleasure, pain, what have you. And then, there's a further point: It seems unlikely that we'll ever escape this treadmill, since even if we've overcome all other challenges we'll still have each other to compete with. I think the term evolution is vague. The development of the brain has already mess up with non brain based evolution, as many other things. I mean evolution leads to competing meta-evolution, and new big cycles are created. An example: the invention of spectacles makes possible the survival of impaired genes related to the eyesight. This, like the handling of a piece of wood, and seen in geological time, is just a tiny part of the beginning of transforming ourselves into machines. In most futures we will be virtual in different kind of universal emulation with the available material, just for economical reason. That will be a sort of jump out of the O2-CO2 based evolution. It can take some millennia, or be quicker. Evolution will pursue and take unimaginable shapes. But we (with we = the humans) might destroy ourselves in the process, in which case we will try again later (with we = the löbian vertebrates and invertebrates). We have to not miss that things too often before the collision between the Milky Way and Andromeda, though. Some knowledge in black hole quantum computing can be handy. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
On 6/23/2011 9:27 AM, Rex Allen wrote: On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 2:06 PM, Pilar Morales pilarmorales...@gmail.com wrote: Hello Rex, thank you for generating this tread. Nice subject title. My comments below On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 3:04 PM, Rex Allenrexallen31...@gmail.com wrote: Even something that IS good for us will cause less happiness if its easily available, because there's no real harm in not being highly motivated to get it - since you'll get it even if you're relatively indifferent to it. Also, even good things can become detrimental if over-indulged in. So, over time entropy will eat away at the structure that underlies the desire for that thing. That is such a predominant masculine trait :) not to say that it is exclusively for males. Some people have a hard time valuing something that was easily obtained, for them, reciprocate love at first sight is probably out of the question. Our ancestors had to fight for desirable things, desirable lands, desirable women, desirable outcomes. Right! So I think there were two main points to my original post: 1) The hedonic treadmill operates at the level of the species as well as at the level of the individual, though for different reasons and by different mechanisms. 2) Any aspect of a species that doesn't contribute to increasing reproductive fitness (and isn't a spandrel), will eventually be mutated away. This includes happiness, pleasure, pain, what have you. And then, there's a further point: It seems unlikely that we'll ever escape this treadmill, since even if we've overcome all other challenges we'll still have each other to compete with. And in fact for a long time we've mainly had each other to compete with. I suspect that un-natural selection was responsible for the rapid development of language and symbolic thought...and lying. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
On 23 Jun 2011, at 20:25, meekerdb wrote: On 6/23/2011 9:27 AM, Rex Allen wrote: On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 2:06 PM, Pilar Morales pilarmorales...@gmail.com wrote: Hello Rex, thank you for generating this tread. Nice subject title. My comments below On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 3:04 PM, Rex Allenrexallen31...@gmail.com wrote: Even something that IS good for us will cause less happiness if its easily available, because there's no real harm in not being highly motivated to get it - since you'll get it even if you're relatively indifferent to it. Also, even good things can become detrimental if over-indulged in. So, over time entropy will eat away at the structure that underlies the desire for that thing. That is such a predominant masculine trait :) not to say that it is exclusively for males. Some people have a hard time valuing something that was easily obtained, for them, reciprocate love at first sight is probably out of the question. Our ancestors had to fight for desirable things, desirable lands, desirable women, desirable outcomes. Right! So I think there were two main points to my original post: 1) The hedonic treadmill operates at the level of the species as well as at the level of the individual, though for different reasons and by different mechanisms. 2) Any aspect of a species that doesn't contribute to increasing reproductive fitness (and isn't a spandrel), will eventually be mutated away. This includes happiness, pleasure, pain, what have you. And then, there's a further point: It seems unlikely that we'll ever escape this treadmill, since even if we've overcome all other challenges we'll still have each other to compete with. And in fact for a long time we've mainly had each other to compete with. I suspect that un-natural selection was responsible for the rapid development of language and symbolic thought...and lying. Lying is of the type Bf, like errors, dreams and perhaps death. But it is more general than asserting a falsity, it might be acting and behaving in a way such that others will have a wrong belief. With that definition in mind, the following spider is already lying, because she behaves in a way which generates a wrong belief in the mind of birds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pgs_-Lckno This illustrates that lying might be an older trick than language and symbolic thought. This raises the question: since when nature lies? Since the big bang? Or is it even deeper? About happiness, it is plausibly of the type ~Bf, that is Dt. It means: never let anyone decide for you what it is or what it isn't. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 11:35 AM, benjayk benjamin.jaku...@googlemail.com wrote: Rex Allen wrote: On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 6:08 PM, benjayk benjamin.jaku...@googlemail.com wrote: Rex Allen wrote: If evolution by natural selection were correct, then it seems to me that if the overall environment remained relatively stable for an extended period of time - then regardless of how it ended up, humans would be at about same level of happiness. I don't think it is generally true, though I think it is approximatly true if we assume humans are restricted to biological intelligence (which probably won't be the case in the future). Though, if our technological prowess were to plateau at a level advanced enough that we could maintain a stable environment for ourselves, but short of any type of Singularity...then what? I personally believe that development is an inevitable and universal part of the omniverse. Probably ever accelerating development (my guess is uncomputable fast development). I think there are plenty reasons to believe in development as an universal principle: Occam's Razor + evidence, pragmatic optimism, a consistent future for subjective immortality (which I assume)... Okay, let’s assume that we take complete control over every aspect of ourselves and our environment. And that we start spreading throughout the galaxy, leaping from solar system to solar system. Rex Allen wrote: Surely there will be some competition in this process, as the groups that “shape themselves” in the most efficient way “outcompete” those groups who do not. Surely this idea will occur to *someone* at *sometime* during the expansion process. Why wouldn’t it? More resources means you get to pursue *your* projects instead of someone else’s. It also means that you have more of a cushion against leans times. It also means that you can defend yourself better against someone else who gets the same idea. So groups that spread more quickly will gain access to more resources (assuming that the galaxy is empty of other intelligences), which they can then use to overwhelm groups that spread more slowly. But groups that spread *too* quickly will over extend and be undermined by groups that spread at a more optimal rate. Now we’re back in an “evolutionary” framework. Now we’re once again subject to nature, red in tooth and claw. This presupposes that we all have fundamental different, irreconcilable goals. I think we have fundamentally the same or similar goals and only need to learn to identify and actualize them by cooperating. Thus there is no reason for strife. Outcompeting at the cost of others is of no use if you damage potential cooperators too much with it. Everyone may spread quicker by cooperating. There will be intellectual and economical competition between different groups and ideas in order to identify what works best among the possibilites, but this a long shot from tooth and claws. There is no need for intellectual and economic competition to feel bad. It can feel immensly exciting and motivating. This will be selected for (and it will actively be created), because we tend to pursue important long-term goals only if we are positively motivated (for a constrast look at depressive people!). The darwinian wanting, fear and hate instincts don't work for abstract, long-term goals. Instead they lead you to pursue short-term goals like acquiring possessions or eating a lot or being lazy and watching TV or procrastinating or beating someone up,... I don't see where a balancing force should come in that prevents to much happy feelings. Rex Allen wrote: Rex Allen wrote: Barring a Chinese-style birth control regime, eventually the more fertile sub-groups would seem likely proliferate and eventually population levels would rise until we were back in the same situation that most of our ancestors lived in...with just enough resources to sustain the existing population. Keep in mind wealthy societies tend to stop growing (even without governmental birth control), so what you say will likely not happen. There are subgroups even within wealthy societies that have very high birth rates. Over time, these subgroups will become the majority. Part of this is cultural - and so how long the high birthrates is a question of how the culture changes. But Mormons are about as wealthy as the average American, and have much larger families. The Amish are also doing quite well. And there are others. But there’s a biological aspect as well. If there’s a genetic component to the decision-making process of deciding how many children to have, then those gene-lines that favor larger families will eventually come to dominate the population, and eventually trigger another population explosion. And further “fertility-boosting” mutations could develop that push this even faster. The question here is whether cultural tradition and
Re: Progress and Happiness
Jason Resch-2 wrote: I've posted this link before, and it is a long read, but I think it is a great piece which shows what technology ultimately can accomplish: http://frombob.to/you/aconvers.html I like the story. In my opinion it potrays advanced beings too much like human beings with more possibilities. But this is hard or impossible to avoid, as we can potray no concrete scenario that is totally unlike everything we know, anymore than worms can imagine human experience, obviously. I don't believe advanced beings will play around more or less aimlessly. They will have a very clear idea of what they want and how to achieve it. Why would you play roleplaying games that virtually set you back into the past for some time, if you can constantly creatively self-improve in a way that your very next experience will be mindblowingly different and better and more insightful than your current one? Jason Resch-2 wrote: Also, this is a good introduction to the benefits of mind uploading: http://marshallbrain.com/discard1.htm Nice! -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/Progress-and-Happiness-tp31876522p31914870.html Sent from the Everything List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
On 6/23/2011 12:36 PM, benjayk wrote: To the latter I absolutely agree. Rules will always be broken. But rules won't eliminate fierce competition. It won't just dissapear, either. It will be superseded by an deeper ability to cooperate that is brought about mainly by technology. It is not something new, either. Look at the cells in your body. In the course of evolution they learned cooperating in way that almost eliminated competition between them (barring accidents like cancer). Why shouldn't happen this on larger scales, too? It has happened on larger scales...hence wars between nation-states. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
meekerdb wrote: On 6/23/2011 12:36 PM, benjayk wrote: To the latter I absolutely agree. Rules will always be broken. But rules won't eliminate fierce competition. It won't just dissapear, either. It will be superseded by an deeper ability to cooperate that is brought about mainly by technology. It is not something new, either. Look at the cells in your body. In the course of evolution they learned cooperating in way that almost eliminated competition between them (barring accidents like cancer). Why shouldn't happen this on larger scales, too? It has happened on larger scales...hence wars between nation-states. Brent Not really. People in states are not even close to cells in a body in the extent of cooperation for one greater cause. There are great division between people in this respect. War between nation states is more like competition between different bacteria strains. But it is true that wars between nation-states instead of wars between tribes or violence between individuals (much more common in the stoneages than now) show some greater unification of bigger groups of people, due to increased cooperation. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/Progress-and-Happiness-tp31876522p31915255.html Sent from the Everything List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 6:15 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 6/21/2011 4:03 PM, Jason Resch wrote: If the technology exists to run minds in computers, we can engineer any simulated environment of our choosing, the need to go out and colonize other planets becomes a completely obsolete technique for survival. And who will run and maintain the computers? The Morlocks? Nanobots or something similar most likely. It's not inconceivable that such fabrication and repair can be handled by autonomous machines. Look at how all the cells in your body work together to keep your brain operating, healing, fighting infection, etc. Similarly, machines could maintain a computer system. Maybe we better just stick with Bruno's theory and pretend they are all running in Platonia. According to Bruno's theory's they are running, as is any computation, the question is with what measure? If this is an idea worth pursing and technical civilizations make it to this stage without killing themselves it may be highly common. There are many reasons it makes sense: it saves the environment from one specie's dominance which harms and weakens the biosphere on which all life (including the dominent species) depends. It is also risky having all these people on one planet, with the rate at which diseases can spread with air travel, and the number of nuclear weapons. There is a great disparity of wealth because physical resources are limited, with brain simulations everyone can be infinite wealthy (design your own home or copy a design created by someone else) All houses can be mansions with perfect vistas, etc. It allows much greater freedom, in the physical world our actions are limited because of the potential for harming others, in the simulated world no one can harm you. There is no longer any need for healthcare as people can no longer get sick. I think there are enough reasons it makes sense that it is the most rational course to take for any civilization capable of it, there are enormous benefits and for what cost? All you are doing is upgrading the hardware. Would you accept an artificial heart and lungs that let you perform better than any Olympia athlete, or an improved immune system such that you never got sick or got cancer? Why not accept an artificial brain which is immune to Alzheimer's, dementia, memory loss, etc? You might say, well who would want to live in a computer simulation, but your life in a simulation can be identical to the one you have already lived (if you wanted it to be). Are you imagining that each person will choose the simulation in which they exist? Every man a king. Every person can have their own universe (or universes) to him or herself if they want, but of course they can still interact and meet on common ground if that is desirable. The difference is similar to that of single-player games and online multiplayer games. Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
On 6/21/2011 11:46 PM, Jason Resch wrote: According to Bruno's theory's they are running, as is any computation, the question is with what measure? If this is an idea worth pursing and technical civilizations make it to this stage without killing themselves it may be highly common. There are many reasons it makes sense: it saves the environment from one specie's dominance which harms and weakens the biosphere on which all life (including the dominent species) depends. So the simulated people will consume and destroy the simulated biosphere? Or will you create simulated worlds without nomological constraints? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 11:37 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 6/21/2011 11:46 PM, Jason Resch wrote: According to Bruno's theory's they are running, as is any computation, the question is with what measure? If this is an idea worth pursing and technical civilizations make it to this stage without killing themselves it may be highly common. There are many reasons it makes sense: it saves the environment from one specie's dominance which harms and weakens the biosphere on which all life (including the dominent species) depends. So the simulated people will consume and destroy the simulated biosphere? Or will you create simulated worlds without nomological constraints? There would be no notion of consumption or destruction as we use those terms in the simulated reality. You could push a button and have an apple pie appear before you ready to eat, with no need to harvest the wheat, collect the apples, etc. Worlds can be created, suspended, duplicated, restored at will, just as when you load a game on your computer it instantiates a virtual environment, you can save it, pause it, resume it, copy it or delete it as you wish. Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
Hello Rex, thank you for generating this tread. Nice subject title. My comments below On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 3:04 PM, Rex Allen rexallen31...@gmail.com wrote: If evolution by natural selection were correct, then it seems to me that if the overall environment remained relatively stable for an extended period of time - then regardless of how it ended up, humans would be at about same level of happiness. In this statement, you seem to posit a relationship/correspondence between happiness and evolution. Also, that natural selection would favor happy traits. I'm not sure that's the case, but seems a theory worth exploring. A paradise or a hell, the species should evolve towards the same overall happiness level. If an overall happiness level can be described as acceptance of environmental conditions instead of an individual sense of fulfillment, then comparison to other's conditions, either in paradise or hell, would provide the overall contrast to feel better or worse than someone else, and happiness would depend on the individual's perspective: The glass is half-empty or half-full, an individual or a mass perspective, as the one that predominates our culture. However, it seems to me that true happiness, true individual fulfillment would see a glass with no water in an environment such as that; comparison has no bearing in their happiness. Instead, an unhappy, unfulfilled individual would use comparison as a crutch of hope, as an adjusted perspective in order to cope with unfulfillment until personal fulfillment occurs. We can only be excessively happy, or excessively unhappy, in a world that we aren't well adapted to. I never thought about this exactly this way but makes a lot of sense. The excessively happy part was a surprise. Self- sabotage can level the field if we are not adapted for excessive happiness.. My reasoning is that happiness serves a purpose...it motivates us to do things that enhance our reproductive success. Unhappiness also serves a purpose...it motivates us to avoid things that decrease our reproductive success. You are making an assumption that happiness is directly proportional to reproductive success. I'm not sure there's enough evidence to support a theory that reproductive success is in direct relation/proportion to happiness. Happiness is useless as a motivational tool if it's too hard *or* too easy to achieve. Unhappiness is useless as a motivational tool if it's too hard *or* too easy to avoid. There has to be some optimum motivational mix of happiness and unhappiness...and I'd think it's always approximately the same mix. Even in a hellish world, humans would be about as happy as they would be in a paradise...once they (as a species) had adapted. Which brings me to my next point. IF this evolutionary theory were true, then scientific advancements only increase human happiness to the extent that it puts us into situations that we're not well adapted to. I believe that in evolution theory, evolution happens because of changes and adaptation in the environment, that is, as the environment changes, organisms currently not equipped to live in that environment need to adapt, evolving themselves in turn as they do adapt. Scientific advancements are subject to this evolutionary theory and natural selection: scientific advancements are evolved tools that have adapted in response to our interactions with science and of science with us. Some advancements have gone extinct, like the mini-disc, or VHS, or many of the theories themselves. Evolution is a dynamic process because we are part of the environment that affects us and that we affect. I would say that scientific advancements increase human happiness to the extent that they fulfill a need, a desire, a demand of a society or of the individual. A definition of happiness (fleeting versus true, or relative versus absolute) and of progress seems to be in order. Keeping up with the neighbors carries a very different feeling than say, catching a glimpse of a double rainbow, or eating when you are really really hungry. Perhaps happiness and progress, and their levels, can be likened to Maslow's pyramid. AND, given enough time (and mutation), we should adapt to all scientific advancements...and a key part of this adaptation will be to reduce the amount of happiness that they generate. I remember the first time my dad sat down in front of a computer, the whole scene invoked the soundtrack of 2001: A Space Odyssey. He was obviously intimidated, and the gap between his adequacy and the technology seemed as large as the Grand Canyon. However, when my daughter, at 6mos old, was on my lap and I was working on the computer, she seemed uncannily ready to use it. I sat there watching her take over the mouse and the keyboard, with her eyes fixed on the screen, effecting change. I wonder if scientific advancements are a response to generational evolution or if it's the other way
Re: Progress and Happiness
In a message dated 6/22/2011 2:46:17 AM Eastern Daylight Time, jasonre...@gmail.com writes: Every person can have their own universe (or universes) to him or herself if they want, but of course they can still interact and meet on common ground if that is desirable. The difference is similar to that of single-player games and online multiplayer games. Jason Jason, Hello From a purely 'values' philosophy-mentality, why go to space in any case if we can load ourselves into a cluster of fantasy-galaxies (populated)? Make the data we have collected about the planet Jupiter, into a giant Middle Earth. Join the land of the Lotus-Eaters, as it were? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 2:48 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: ** In a message dated 6/22/2011 2:46:17 AM Eastern Daylight Time, jasonre...@gmail.com writes: Every person can have their own universe (or universes) to him or herself if they want, but of course they can still interact and meet on common ground if that is desirable. The difference is similar to that of single-player games and online multiplayer games. Jason Jason, Hello From a purely 'values' philosophy-mentality, why go to space in any case if we can load ourselves into a cluster of fantasy-galaxies (populated)? It is not clear to me what you mean by the cluster of fantasy galaxies.. Make the data we have collected about the planet Jupiter, into a giant Middle Earth. Join the land of the Lotus-Eaters, as it were? Heavenly bodies such as Jupiter may be the main source of energy for technical civilizations. Energy becomes the only resource needed to live. I am not sure what you mean by turning it into a Middle Earth, certainly people could create such fantasy universes to live in. Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 10:35 AM, benjayk benjamin.jaku...@googlemail.comwrote: Rex Allen wrote: On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 6:08 PM, benjayk benjamin.jaku...@googlemail.com wrote: Rex Allen wrote: If evolution by natural selection were correct, then it seems to me that if the overall environment remained relatively stable for an extended period of time - then regardless of how it ended up, humans would be at about same level of happiness. I don't think it is generally true, though I think it is approximatly true if we assume humans are restricted to biological intelligence (which probably won't be the case in the future). Though, if our technological prowess were to plateau at a level advanced enough that we could maintain a stable environment for ourselves, but short of any type of Singularity...then what? I personally believe that development is an inevitable and universal part of the omniverse. Probably ever accelerating development (my guess is uncomputable fast development). I think there are plenty reasons to believe in development as an universal principle: Occam's Razor + evidence, pragmatic optimism, a consistent future for subjective immortality (which I assume)... But okay, let's grant this won't happen. In case technological progress might reach a plateau in a way that there are no big paradigm changes and no exponential progress or even constant progress anymore, it will still not absolutely halt. If you think it will, you could more plasubily believe that biological evolution will. There is no reason at all to assume technology will cease to change. So, technology will still adapt to biology much faster than vice versa. As evolution finds a way to make us more unhappy, we will already have found a way to reverse this change for a looong time. Ben, I am generally in agreement with what you have said. I post the following links to help others see what life could be like for humans after a technological singularity: I've posted this link before, and it is a long read, but I think it is a great piece which shows what technology ultimately can accomplish: http://frombob.to/you/aconvers.html Also, this is a good introduction to the benefits of mind uploading: http://marshallbrain.com/discard1.htm Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 11:35 AM, benjayk benjamin.jaku...@googlemail.com wrote: Rex Allen wrote: On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 6:08 PM, benjayk benjamin.jaku...@googlemail.com wrote: Rex Allen wrote: If evolution by natural selection were correct, then it seems to me that if the overall environment remained relatively stable for an extended period of time - then regardless of how it ended up, humans would be at about same level of happiness. I don't think it is generally true, though I think it is approximatly true if we assume humans are restricted to biological intelligence (which probably won't be the case in the future). Though, if our technological prowess were to plateau at a level advanced enough that we could maintain a stable environment for ourselves, but short of any type of Singularity...then what? I personally believe that development is an inevitable and universal part of the omniverse. Probably ever accelerating development (my guess is uncomputable fast development). I think there are plenty reasons to believe in development as an universal principle: Occam's Razor + evidence, pragmatic optimism, a consistent future for subjective immortality (which I assume)... Okay, let’s assume that we take complete control over every aspect of ourselves and our environment. And that we start spreading throughout the galaxy, leaping from solar system to solar system. Surely there will be some competition in this process, as the groups that “shape themselves” in the most efficient way “outcompete” those groups who do not. Surely this idea will occur to *someone* at *sometime* during the expansion process. Why wouldn’t it? More resources means you get to pursue *your* projects instead of someone else’s. It also means that you have more of a cushion against leans times. It also means that you can defend yourself better against someone else who gets the same idea. So groups that spread more quickly will gain access to more resources (assuming that the galaxy is empty of other intelligences), which they can then use to overwhelm groups that spread more slowly. But groups that spread *too* quickly will over extend and be undermined by groups that spread at a more optimal rate. Now we’re back in an “evolutionary” framework. Now we’re once again subject to nature, red in tooth and claw. But okay, let's grant this won't happen. In case technological progress might reach a plateau in a way that there are no big paradigm changes and no exponential progress or even constant progress anymore, it will still not absolutely halt. If you think it will, you could more plasubily believe that biological evolution will. There is no reason at all to assume technology will cease to change. I can imagine it going either way. Time will tell! Rex Allen wrote: Barring a Chinese-style birth control regime, eventually the more fertile sub-groups would seem likely proliferate and eventually population levels would rise until we were back in the same situation that most of our ancestors lived in...with just enough resources to sustain the existing population. Keep in mind wealthy societies tend to stop growing (even without governmental birth control), so what you say will likely not happen. There are subgroups even within wealthy societies that have very high birth rates. Over time, these subgroups will become the majority. Part of this is cultural - and so how long the high birthrates is a question of how the culture changes. But Mormons are about as wealthy as the average American, and have much larger families. The Amish are also doing quite well. And there are others. But there’s a biological aspect as well. If there’s a genetic component to the decision-making process of deciding how many children to have, then those gene-lines that favor larger families will eventually come to dominate the population, and eventually trigger another population explosion. And further “fertility-boosting” mutations could develop that push this even faster. Rex Allen wrote: You don't think that happiness and unhappiness play a significant role in the competition for social status and mates among humans? I would tend to think that our social relations (or lack thereof) are probably the largest contributor to most people's happiness *and* unhappiness. Yes, but I think in a world with a more benign environment social relations will be easier to acquire and keep stable (eg less deaths) and there will be less reason to compete. Absent unbounded resources, there are always reasons to compete. Winning works. Rex Allen wrote: Not everyone can be a winner. We can't *all* get the prettiest girl or handsomest guy. This is bound to cause unhappiness...which then (sometimes) motivates increased effort or a different approach on the next round. I don't see a reason why everyone couldn't be a winner. Evolution is just too dumb to find a good
Re: Progress and Happiness
On 6/21/2011 9:56 AM, Rex Allen wrote: And that we start spreading throughout the galaxy, leaping from solar system to solar system. If any intelligent species spreads through the galaxy, it isn't going to be human. Human life spans are much to short. I recommend my friend Lawrence Crowell's book Can Star Systems be Explored? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 1:23 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 6/21/2011 9:56 AM, Rex Allen wrote: And that we start spreading throughout the galaxy, leaping from solar system to solar system. If any intelligent species spreads through the galaxy, it isn't going to be human. Human life spans are much to short. I recommend my friend Lawrence Crowell's book Can Star Systems be Explored? Brent Humans as we know them now will likely not explore the galaxy, but nothing prevents human intelligence from exploring the galaxy. In the next 30 years the equivalent of the average USB stick will have enough memory to store a digital representation of your brain. A processor made of carbon nanotubes that is 1 inch cube could have enough processing power to emulate an entire city worth of humans (100 thousand to 100 million): http://books.google.com/books?id=88U6hdUi6D0Cpg=PA527lpg=PA527dq=cube+inch+nanotubesource=blots=v-c1mMoqGHsig=cRiG8xvb7W8i6_oc2T-UjyOvVEchl=enei=tgYBTpT_DOq00AGbs52VDgsa=Xoi=book_resultct=resultresnum=1ved=0CDwQ6AEwAA#v=onepageq=cube%20inch%20nanotubef=false This is how humanity will explore space, should we survive to that stage, no in our frail bodies with all their demands for food, recreation, living spaces, air, waste processing, sickness, radiation protection, high pressured atmosphere, and so on. Instead of having to construct a gigantic vessel to house the hydroponics and living spaces for millions of people, and all the thick radiation blocking walls surrounding such a massive structure, we could fit a million people in the size of a space shuttle, and the only requirements of that would be energy production which could be met by a nuclear reactor. Living in simulated realities of their choosing, people would not be bored or run out of things to do, many might forget altogether the fact that they are on a space ship. It would also enable them to live for long enough periods to travel interstellar distances. Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
On 6/21/2011 2:09 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 1:23 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 6/21/2011 9:56 AM, Rex Allen wrote: And that we start spreading throughout the galaxy, leaping from solar system to solar system. If any intelligent species spreads through the galaxy, it isn't going to be human. Human life spans are much to short. I recommend my friend Lawrence Crowell's book Can Star Systems be Explored? Brent Humans as we know them now will likely not explore the galaxy, but nothing prevents human intelligence from exploring the galaxy. In the next 30 years the equivalent of the average USB stick will have enough memory to store a digital representation of your brain. A processor made of carbon nanotubes that is 1 inch cube could have enough processing power to emulate an entire city worth of humans (100 thousand to 100 million): http://books.google.com/books?id=88U6hdUi6D0Cpg=PA527lpg=PA527dq=cube+inch+nanotubesource=blots=v-c1mMoqGHsig=cRiG8xvb7W8i6_oc2T-UjyOvVEchl=enei=tgYBTpT_DOq00AGbs52VDgsa=Xoi=book_resultct=resultresnum=1ved=0CDwQ6AEwAA#v=onepageq=cube%20inch%20nanotubef=false http://books.google.com/books?id=88U6hdUi6D0Cpg=PA527lpg=PA527dq=cube+inch+nanotubesource=blots=v-c1mMoqGHsig=cRiG8xvb7W8i6_oc2T-UjyOvVEchl=enei=tgYBTpT_DOq00AGbs52VDgsa=Xoi=book_resultct=resultresnum=1ved=0CDwQ6AEwAA#v=onepageq=cube%20inch%20nanotubef=false This is how humanity will explore space, should we survive to that stage, no in our frail bodies with all their demands for food, recreation, living spaces, air, waste processing, sickness, radiation protection, high pressured atmosphere, and so on. Instead of having to construct a gigantic vessel to house the hydroponics and living spaces for millions of people, and all the thick radiation blocking walls surrounding such a massive structure, we could fit a million people in the size of a space shuttle, and the only requirements of that would be energy production which could be met by a nuclear reactor. Living in simulated realities of their choosing, people would not be bored or run out of things to do, many might forget altogether the fact that they are on a space ship. It would also enable them to live for long enough periods to travel interstellar distances. And will they live, reproduce, and die in this simulation? If not, will they not be un-human? And why keep them living in the simulation? Why not just wake them up when they get to a planetary system to explore? But if they're just going to explore there's no reason to have them as simulated humans in a computer. They might better be super intelligent Mars Rovers. Of course it will be a century or so before they can report anything back. So who's going to send them in hope of an answer long after they are dead? So if we do this at all (which I doubt) we will more likely send AI and genetic material with the hope that the AI can identify a suitable planet and engineer humans from the genetic material to create a species of human that can live on the planet. It would be essentially a blind casting of seed. Brent Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 5:51 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: ** On 6/21/2011 2:09 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 1:23 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 6/21/2011 9:56 AM, Rex Allen wrote: And that we start spreading throughout the galaxy, leaping from solar system to solar system. If any intelligent species spreads through the galaxy, it isn't going to be human. Human life spans are much to short. I recommend my friend Lawrence Crowell's book Can Star Systems be Explored? Brent Humans as we know them now will likely not explore the galaxy, but nothing prevents human intelligence from exploring the galaxy. In the next 30 years the equivalent of the average USB stick will have enough memory to store a digital representation of your brain. A processor made of carbon nanotubes that is 1 inch cube could have enough processing power to emulate an entire city worth of humans (100 thousand to 100 million): http://books.google.com/books?id=88U6hdUi6D0Cpg=PA527lpg=PA527dq=cube+inch+nanotubesource=blots=v-c1mMoqGHsig=cRiG8xvb7W8i6_oc2T-UjyOvVEchl=enei=tgYBTpT_DOq00AGbs52VDgsa=Xoi=book_resultct=resultresnum=1ved=0CDwQ6AEwAA#v=onepageq=cube%20inch%20nanotubef=false This is how humanity will explore space, should we survive to that stage, no in our frail bodies with all their demands for food, recreation, living spaces, air, waste processing, sickness, radiation protection, high pressured atmosphere, and so on. Instead of having to construct a gigantic vessel to house the hydroponics and living spaces for millions of people, and all the thick radiation blocking walls surrounding such a massive structure, we could fit a million people in the size of a space shuttle, and the only requirements of that would be energy production which could be met by a nuclear reactor. Living in simulated realities of their choosing, people would not be bored or run out of things to do, many might forget altogether the fact that they are on a space ship. It would also enable them to live for long enough periods to travel interstellar distances. And will they live, reproduce, and die in this simulation? They will live, I see no need for them to die. Reproduction is another issue, at least if there is no death it leads to exponential growth which will slow down the speed at which everyone else runs (or require exponentially more resources). If people want the experience of childhood or parenthood again, the people can arrange such a simulation and each can take the roles that they want. If not, will they not be un-human? And why keep them living in the simulation? Why not just wake them up when they get to a planetary system to explore? What is the point of existing if you are not alive? The simulated minds don't need to worry about aging, running out of food, etc., so why not explore conscious while exploring space? But if they're just going to explore there's no reason to have them as simulated humans in a computer. The additional reason is to make copies and spread out through the cosmos so that single events don't lead to extinction. Why leave all the fun up to robots while we in our flawed biological hardware are stuck on a rock? They might better be super intelligent Mars Rovers. Of course it will be a century or so before they can report anything back. So who's going to send them in hope of an answer long after they are dead? If the simulated humans do the exploration there is no problem of never living long enough to get back the results. So if we do this at all (which I doubt) we will more likely send AI and genetic material with the hope that the AI can identify a suitable planet and engineer humans from the genetic material to create a species of human that can live on the planet. It would be essentially a blind casting of seed. If the technology exists to run minds in computers, we can engineer any simulated environment of our choosing, the need to go out and colonize other planets becomes a completely obsolete technique for survival. You might say, well who would want to live in a computer simulation, but your life in a simulation can be identical to the one you have already lived (if you wanted it to be). Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
On 6/21/2011 4:03 PM, Jason Resch wrote: If the technology exists to run minds in computers, we can engineer any simulated environment of our choosing, the need to go out and colonize other planets becomes a completely obsolete technique for survival. And who will run and maintain the computers? The Morlocks? Maybe we better just stick with Bruno's theory and pretend they are all running in Platonia. You might say, well who would want to live in a computer simulation, but your life in a simulation can be identical to the one you have already lived (if you wanted it to be). Are you imagining that each person will choose the simulation in which they exist? Every man a king. Brent Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
An interesting video related to the discussion: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html Interesting point: Lottery winners and those who become paraplegic have the same level of happiness after a year. Jason On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 10:57 PM, Rex Allen rexallen31...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 6:08 PM, benjayk benjamin.jaku...@googlemail.com wrote: Rex Allen wrote: If evolution by natural selection were correct, then it seems to me that if the overall environment remained relatively stable for an extended period of time - then regardless of how it ended up, humans would be at about same level of happiness. I don't think it is generally true, though I think it is approximatly true if we assume humans are restricted to biological intelligence (which probably won't be the case in the future). Though, if our technological prowess were to plateau at a level advanced enough that we could maintain a stable environment for ourselves, but short of any type of Singularity...then what? Barring a Chinese-style birth control regime, eventually the more fertile sub-groups would seem likely proliferate and eventually population levels would rise until we were back in the same situation that most of our ancestors lived in...with just enough resources to sustain the existing population. There's a finite amount of energy and resources available on Earth, or even in the solar system, if we make it that far. Once our technological prowess has plateaued and we've bumped up against those energy and resource limits...then what? My guess is it doesn't really matter. The rate of change will slow from it's current breakneck speed (except for the occasional supervolcano/giant asteroid) and the species will adapt to whatever the situation is and people (or whatever) will be about as happy as they ever were. Rex Allen wrote: We can only be excessively happy, or excessively unhappy, in a world that we aren't well adapted to. My reasoning is that happiness serves a purpose...it motivates us to do things that enhance our reproductive success. Unhappiness also serves a purpose...it motivates us to avoid things that decrease our reproductive success. But whether it serves that purpose is dependent on the circumstances, not only on the relative amount of happiness and unhappiness. It's not clear that there couldn't be circumstances where it is not useful for beings to feel much more or much less happiness (though I hope the latter isn't the case). If there are less treats in the environment, I guess that we would tend to be happier, because negative feelings are needed for avoiding (mostly rather acute) treats. We don't need to be unhappy to get along with each other, for example. You don't think that happiness and unhappiness play a significant role in the competition for social status and mates among humans? I would tend to think that our social relations (or lack thereof) are probably the largest contributor to most people's happiness *and* unhappiness. Hell is other people. Homo homini lupus. Man is wolf to man. So in a world where there are less treats (let's say more stable climate) there would be less pressure for negative feelings and more room for usefulness of happiness (let's say due to increased social interaction), so we would be happier on average. I think increased social interaction is just as likely to result in unhappiness as happiness. Especially in Malthusian situations where we eventually bump up against available resources. Not everyone can be a winner. We can't *all* get the prettiest girl or handsomest guy. This is bound to cause unhappiness...which then (sometimes) motivates increased effort or a different approach on the next round. I find it probable that there are many biological and pre-industrial beings in the multiverse that are significantly more happy than us because of this (it's very unlikely that it would be close to paradise, though, I guess). In an infinite multiverse...I tend to think that every possible variation would occur a (countably) infinite number of times. And so there would be the same number of happy and unhappy people...a countable infinity of each. Rex Allen wrote: There has to be some optimum motivational mix of happiness and unhappiness...and I'd think it's always approximately the same mix. I think this is a too simplified conception of what happiness and unhappiness are for. Whether we are motivated does not only depend on whether there is an appropiate mix of happiness and unhappiness (though this I agree this is factor), but whether in the situations where it is useful to be unhappy we are unhappy and when it is useful to be happy, we are happy. If there are less reasons that would make unhappiness a useful thing, there will be less unhappiness (see my example
Re: Progress and Happiness
Rex Allen wrote: On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 6:08 PM, benjayk benjamin.jaku...@googlemail.com wrote: Rex Allen wrote: If evolution by natural selection were correct, then it seems to me that if the overall environment remained relatively stable for an extended period of time - then regardless of how it ended up, humans would be at about same level of happiness. I don't think it is generally true, though I think it is approximatly true if we assume humans are restricted to biological intelligence (which probably won't be the case in the future). Though, if our technological prowess were to plateau at a level advanced enough that we could maintain a stable environment for ourselves, but short of any type of Singularity...then what? I personally believe that development is an inevitable and universal part of the omniverse. Probably ever accelerating development (my guess is uncomputable fast development). I think there are plenty reasons to believe in development as an universal principle: Occam's Razor + evidence, pragmatic optimism, a consistent future for subjective immortality (which I assume)... But okay, let's grant this won't happen. In case technological progress might reach a plateau in a way that there are no big paradigm changes and no exponential progress or even constant progress anymore, it will still not absolutely halt. If you think it will, you could more plasubily believe that biological evolution will. There is no reason at all to assume technology will cease to change. So, technology will still adapt to biology much faster than vice versa. As evolution finds a way to make us more unhappy, we will already have found a way to reverse this change for a looong time. Rex Allen wrote: Barring a Chinese-style birth control regime, eventually the more fertile sub-groups would seem likely proliferate and eventually population levels would rise until we were back in the same situation that most of our ancestors lived in...with just enough resources to sustain the existing population. Keep in mind wealthy societies tend to stop growing (even without governmental birth control), so what you say will likely not happen. Rex Allen wrote: There's a finite amount of energy and resources available on Earth, or even in the solar system, if we make it that far. Yes. But we may leave the solar system. Not necessarily outwards, though. We don't know what happens at the smallest length scales, but we know that space-time can't exist in the same way as it does at higher scales. This may be an opportunity to transcend what we now think of as space (3-dimensional and quite smooth, without wormholes). Of course it will be a hard engineering challenge to access the smallest length scales. It might even seem impossibly difficult. But building computers and complexifying them at the current rate also seems clearly impossible if you know nothing about modern technology. Even if we don't find a way to acquire more energy, technology won't lose its power to adapt. Rex Allen wrote: But whether it serves that purpose is dependent on the circumstances, not only on the relative amount of happiness and unhappiness. It's not clear that there couldn't be circumstances where it is not useful for beings to feel much more or much less happiness (though I hope the latter isn't the case). If there are less treats in the environment, I guess that we would tend to be happier, because negative feelings are needed for avoiding (mostly rather acute) treats. We don't need to be unhappy to get along with each other, for example. You don't think that happiness and unhappiness play a significant role in the competition for social status and mates among humans? I would tend to think that our social relations (or lack thereof) are probably the largest contributor to most people's happiness *and* unhappiness. Yes, but I think in a world with a more benign environment social relations will be easier to acquire and keep stable (eg less deaths) and there will be less reason to compete. Rex Allen wrote: So in a world where there are less treats (let's say more stable climate) there would be less pressure for negative feelings and more room for usefulness of happiness (let's say due to increased social interaction), so we would be happier on average. I think increased social interaction is just as likely to result in unhappiness as happiness. Especially in Malthusian situations where we eventually bump up against available resources. OK, its not what I'd expect, but I can't really think of good evidence against it (we have nothing to adequatly compare humanity to). Rex Allen wrote: Not everyone can be a winner. We can't *all* get the prettiest girl or handsomest guy. This is bound to cause unhappiness...which then (sometimes) motivates increased effort or a different approach on the next round. I don't see a reason why everyone couldn't be a winner. Evolution is
Re: Progress and Happiness
Jason Resch-2 wrote: An interesting video related to the discussion: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html Interesting point: Lottery winners and those who become paraplegic have the same level of happiness after a year. A very interesting talk. We tend to totally missestimate what makes us happy. Having money will not make you happy if you don't know what to do with this money to make you happy (buying a house and a car probably won't) or if you are fearful to lose it again or if alienate your friends. Being paraplegic is not the end of the world, as we imagine. It is a major hinderance, but most things we do really care about don't get lost (you can use your mind, have friends, even do sports,...), so why shouldn't we be able to still be happy? What really makes us happy is doing what we really find important, being satisified with what we have and not being in situations that directly cause unpleasant feelings (chronic pain, depression, imprisonment). And most of all, our neurochemistry. All feelings supervene on our neurochemistry. This is both really bad and really good news. If you have a really screwed up neurochemistry, you might be depressed and you really can't do much against it, no matter whether you try hard. But it also means that we don't have to walk a long and hard road to become happy (like many religious and spiritual teachings want us to believe, like reincarnation), we just have to know the trick to make us happy. We don't know very good tricks yet, but we might discover them relatively soon. There might be something like ectasy without neurotoxic properties and without disturbance of the balance of our neurochemistry. Or brain implants might do the trick. Unfortunately it is not widely believed that it is okay to manipulate you neurochemistry to be happy. Many ways to do it are illegal. It is really a joke to write the right to pursue happiness into the constitution and throw people in a cage for doing it. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/Progress-and-Happiness-tp31876522p31887011.html Sent from the Everything List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
On Jun 20, 9:09 pm, benjayk benjamin.jaku...@googlemail.com wrote: Jason Resch-2 wrote: An interesting video related to the discussion: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html Interesting point: Lottery winners and those who become paraplegic have the same level of happiness after a year. A very interesting talk. We tend to totally missestimate what makes us happy. Having money will not make you happy if you don't know what to do with this money to make you happy (buying a house and a car probably won't) or if you are fearful to lose it again or if alienate your friends. Being paraplegic is not the end of the world, as we imagine. It is a major hinderance, but most things we do really care about don't get lost (you can use your mind, have friends, even do sports,...), so why shouldn't we be able to still be happy? What really makes us happy is doing what we really find important, being satisified with what we have and not being in situations that directly cause unpleasant feelings (chronic pain, depression, imprisonment). And most of all, our neurochemistry. All feelings supervene on our neurochemistry. Actually there is a shortcut to happiness.It is being happy.Happiness is a state of mind.. practice it to be happy.by doing what we really find important we get pleasures,not joy. This is both really bad and really good news. If you have a really screwed up neurochemistry, you might be depressed and you really can't do much against it, no matter whether you try hard. But it also means that we don't have to walk a long and hard road to become happy (like many religious and spiritual teachings want us to believe, like reincarnation), we just have to know the trick to make us happy. We don't know very good tricks yet, but we might discover them relatively soon. There might be something like ectasy without neurotoxic properties and without disturbance of the balance of our neurochemistry. Or brain implants might do the trick. Unfortunately it is not widely believed that it is okay to manipulate you neurochemistry to be happy. Many ways to do it are illegal. It is really a joke to write the right to pursue happiness into the constitution and throw people in a cage for doing it. -- View this message in context:http://old.nabble.com/Progress-and-Happiness-tp31876522p31887011.html Sent from the Everything List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 03:04:19PM -0400, Rex Allen wrote: For instance, food. Most people really like sweets and salty greasy foods. Much more than they like bland vegetables and whatnot. The acquisition of junk food makes us happy *because* those things were hard to acquire a few hundred years ago...and if you're living in resource-poor circumstances, then calories and salt are just what the doctor ordered. BUT...we're now out of equilibrium. Junk food is at least as easy to get as vegetables, if not easier. So our evolved preferences push us to consume more than is good for us. Given time, and if we allowed heart disease and diabetes to do their work, the human race would eventually lose their taste for such unhealthy fare, as those with genetic tendencies in that direction died off. Anticipating a greasy meal of pizza and consuming it would no longer make us as happy. Because that happiness is too easily satisfied to provide the optimal level of motivation. Evolution won't help here - these diseases cause death after one's reproductive years, direct selection on dietary preference will not occur. There is an indirect effect by not being grandparents for your kids, but so long as some of the grandparents are around, this would effectively be nullified. Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
Rex Allen wrote: If evolution by natural selection were correct, then it seems to me that if the overall environment remained relatively stable for an extended period of time - then regardless of how it ended up, humans would be at about same level of happiness. I don't think it is generally true, though I think it is approximatly true if we assume humans are restricted to biological intelligence (which probably won't be the case in the future). Rex Allen wrote: We can only be excessively happy, or excessively unhappy, in a world that we aren't well adapted to. My reasoning is that happiness serves a purpose...it motivates us to do things that enhance our reproductive success. Unhappiness also serves a purpose...it motivates us to avoid things that decrease our reproductive success. But whether it serves that purpose is dependent on the circumstances, not only on the relative amount of happiness and unhappiness. It's not clear that there couldn't be circumstances where it is not useful for beings to feel much more or much less happiness (though I hope the latter isn't the case). If there are less treats in the environment, I guess that we would tend to be happier, because negative feelings are needed for avoiding (mostly rather acute) treats. We don't need to be unhappy to get along with each other, for example. So in a world where there are less treats (let's say more stable climate) there would be less pressure for negative feelings and more room for usefulness of happiness (let's say due to increased social interaction), so we would be happier on average. I find it probable that there are many biological and pre-industrial beings in the multiverse that are significantly more happy than us because of this (it's very unlikely that it would be close to paradise, though, I guess). Rex Allen wrote: Happiness is useless as a motivational tool if it's too hard *or* too easy to achieve. Unhappiness is useless as a motivational tool if it's too hard *or* too easy to avoid. Right. But then everything that is too anything for a puropse is useless for this purpose, so that's basically a tautology. Rex Allen wrote: There has to be some optimum motivational mix of happiness and unhappiness...and I'd think it's always approximately the same mix. I think this is a too simplified conception of what happiness and unhappiness are for. Whether we are motivated does not only depend on whether there is an appropiate mix of happiness and unhappiness (though this I agree this is factor), but whether in the situations where it is useful to be unhappy we are unhappy and when it is useful to be happy, we are happy. If there are less reasons that would make unhappiness a useful thing, there will be less unhappiness (see my example above). But it is probably true that in a pre-technological biological environment there will always be plenty of reasons for unhappiness, unfortunately. Rex Allen wrote: Which brings me to my next point. IF this evolutionary theory were true, then scientific advancements only increase human happiness to the extent that it puts us into situations that we're not well adapted to. AND, given enough time (and mutation), we should adapt to all scientific advancements...and a key part of this adaptation will be to reduce the amount of happiness that they generate. We can only be happier than cavemen when we are in a situation that we are not well adapted to. I think if we take scientific advanvement into account what you say becomes quite wrong. First, we can't adapt very much biologically to scientific advancement because science changes us faster than biology can react to. The more scientific advanced we are, the more this becomes true. Also, scientific advancement is a kind an adaption, too. But it follows other rules than bioglogical adaption. For one thing, it happens due to conscious thinking of beings and those are aware that they want to be happy (unfortunately still to a quite limited extent) so science will not be as indifferent to the wants and well-beings of beings as biology is. Rex Allen wrote: For instance, food. Most people really like sweets and salty greasy foods. Much more than they like bland vegetables and whatnot. The acquisition of junk food makes us happy *because* those things were hard to acquire a few hundred years ago...and if you're living in resource-poor circumstances, then calories and salt are just what the doctor ordered. BUT...we're now out of equilibrium. Junk food is at least as easy to get as vegetables, if not easier. So our evolved preferences push us to consume more than is good for us. Given time, and if we allowed heart disease and diabetes to do their work, the human race would eventually lose their taste for such unhealthy fare, as those with genetic tendencies in that direction died off. Anticipating a greasy meal of pizza and consuming it would no longer make us as happy.
Re: Progress and Happiness
On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 5:58 PM, Russell Standish li...@hpcoders.com.au wrote: On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 03:04:19PM -0400, Rex Allen wrote: For instance, food. Most people really like sweets and salty greasy foods. Much more than they like bland vegetables and whatnot. The acquisition of junk food makes us happy *because* those things were hard to acquire a few hundred years ago...and if you're living in resource-poor circumstances, then calories and salt are just what the doctor ordered. BUT...we're now out of equilibrium. Junk food is at least as easy to get as vegetables, if not easier. So our evolved preferences push us to consume more than is good for us. Given time, and if we allowed heart disease and diabetes to do their work, the human race would eventually lose their taste for such unhealthy fare, as those with genetic tendencies in that direction died off. Anticipating a greasy meal of pizza and consuming it would no longer make us as happy. Because that happiness is too easily satisfied to provide the optimal level of motivation. Evolution won't help here - these diseases cause death after one's reproductive years, direct selection on dietary preference will not occur. They do generally cause death after one's reproductive years...especially for women, though less definitely for men (e.g., James Doohan!). And those late life babies might add up over the long haul. Also, these diseases (and the obesity that often accompanies them) also cause problems earlier in life, which also seems likely to lower reproductive success. And even a small reduction in reproductive success will add up over many generations. There is an indirect effect by not being grandparents for your kids, but so long as some of the grandparents are around, this would effectively be nullified. If your one of your grandfathers dies of diabetes related complications, meanwhile I've still got two grandfathers - then all other things being equal I seem to have a slight edge over you. If for no other reason than as insurance against plain old bad luck. If we then both lose another grandfather to the same freak airplane crash, then you're out of grandfathers, while I've still got one left. So the advantage to me might be small, but again, added up over many generations, that will still presumably turn the tide in favor of my genetic line. Rex -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Progress and Happiness
On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 6:08 PM, benjayk benjamin.jaku...@googlemail.com wrote: Rex Allen wrote: If evolution by natural selection were correct, then it seems to me that if the overall environment remained relatively stable for an extended period of time - then regardless of how it ended up, humans would be at about same level of happiness. I don't think it is generally true, though I think it is approximatly true if we assume humans are restricted to biological intelligence (which probably won't be the case in the future). Though, if our technological prowess were to plateau at a level advanced enough that we could maintain a stable environment for ourselves, but short of any type of Singularity...then what? Barring a Chinese-style birth control regime, eventually the more fertile sub-groups would seem likely proliferate and eventually population levels would rise until we were back in the same situation that most of our ancestors lived in...with just enough resources to sustain the existing population. There's a finite amount of energy and resources available on Earth, or even in the solar system, if we make it that far. Once our technological prowess has plateaued and we've bumped up against those energy and resource limits...then what? My guess is it doesn't really matter. The rate of change will slow from it's current breakneck speed (except for the occasional supervolcano/giant asteroid) and the species will adapt to whatever the situation is and people (or whatever) will be about as happy as they ever were. Rex Allen wrote: We can only be excessively happy, or excessively unhappy, in a world that we aren't well adapted to. My reasoning is that happiness serves a purpose...it motivates us to do things that enhance our reproductive success. Unhappiness also serves a purpose...it motivates us to avoid things that decrease our reproductive success. But whether it serves that purpose is dependent on the circumstances, not only on the relative amount of happiness and unhappiness. It's not clear that there couldn't be circumstances where it is not useful for beings to feel much more or much less happiness (though I hope the latter isn't the case). If there are less treats in the environment, I guess that we would tend to be happier, because negative feelings are needed for avoiding (mostly rather acute) treats. We don't need to be unhappy to get along with each other, for example. You don't think that happiness and unhappiness play a significant role in the competition for social status and mates among humans? I would tend to think that our social relations (or lack thereof) are probably the largest contributor to most people's happiness *and* unhappiness. Hell is other people. Homo homini lupus. Man is wolf to man. So in a world where there are less treats (let's say more stable climate) there would be less pressure for negative feelings and more room for usefulness of happiness (let's say due to increased social interaction), so we would be happier on average. I think increased social interaction is just as likely to result in unhappiness as happiness. Especially in Malthusian situations where we eventually bump up against available resources. Not everyone can be a winner. We can't *all* get the prettiest girl or handsomest guy. This is bound to cause unhappiness...which then (sometimes) motivates increased effort or a different approach on the next round. I find it probable that there are many biological and pre-industrial beings in the multiverse that are significantly more happy than us because of this (it's very unlikely that it would be close to paradise, though, I guess). In an infinite multiverse...I tend to think that every possible variation would occur a (countably) infinite number of times. And so there would be the same number of happy and unhappy people...a countable infinity of each. Rex Allen wrote: There has to be some optimum motivational mix of happiness and unhappiness...and I'd think it's always approximately the same mix. I think this is a too simplified conception of what happiness and unhappiness are for. Whether we are motivated does not only depend on whether there is an appropiate mix of happiness and unhappiness (though this I agree this is factor), but whether in the situations where it is useful to be unhappy we are unhappy and when it is useful to be happy, we are happy. If there are less reasons that would make unhappiness a useful thing, there will be less unhappiness (see my example above). I'll agree that there is likely a certain degree of dependence on contingent circumstance. In an infinite universe improbable things will happen infinitely often... Rex Allen wrote: Which brings me to my next point. IF this evolutionary theory were true, then scientific advancements only increase human happiness to the extent that it puts us into situations that we're not well adapted to. AND,
