Chironian asked, "Do you see?"

No, I don't but I don't think it would very productive for me to discuss it further. Tell you what, let's discuss it again in a thousand years and you can give me documented proof of someone who attained immortality solely through NLP.  Until then I remain skeptical.

Mr. Farlops,

Please read my posts on this matter again. The philosophical attitude has more significance than skepticizing the postulates.

Abolitionist:

Chironian:

Namaste, Mr. Farlops.

Are you giving a reverential salutation? If so, why?

Because Mr. Farlops and few others here are beginning to notice that the Abolitionist Project stems from someone who is depressed, or even hostile, towards human values.

Depressed? Occasionally as are all humans. But why does this matter?

There must be a distinction between messenger and message. It's more edifying in this context to debate the truth rather than the validity of the Abolitionist project based on what you imagine to be my mental state.

Hostile towards human values? Which values do you consider 'human'?

Where is the hostility - can you provide an example? Attempting to convince others through dialogue using accurate information is not hostility.

"Please read my posts on this matter again. The philosophical attitude has more significance than skepticizing the postulates." - quote = Chironian

There is a use for questioning reality - however, sometimes questioning can be counterproductive. The Buddhists say that a given behavior or thought is like a raft - use it to cross the river but then leave it behind. In this way we can still use concepts as needed and learn to transcend them when no longer necessary. This process has limits - Buddhists still suffer.

 

Mr. Farlops:

Homeostatic systems, organisms, when they are healthy and in good working order tend to be ultrastable. You can bash on them with a lot of stresses and surprises and they respond with resilience and flexibility. They heal, they adapt, they move on, they learn. In a few rare cases the organisms are even tougher than before because their immune systems have "learned something," their brains have learned something or their entire species "learns" something through natural selection.

I used to have a job where I raised and tended mice and rats for medical research, a boring and unpleasent job but, I did learn something from it. These mice and rats were raised in highly sterile environments for the express purpose of giving them compromised and weakened immune systems. If let out into the wild most of these mice and rats would probably die very quickly once pathogens and parasites started to infect them.

This is what I'm trying get at. Sometimes a little stress and pain are necessary. They teach your brain things. They teach your body things. Maybe they even teach society things. Maybe it's sort of like a thermodynamics of learning. Work generates waste heat. Learning generates a little unavoidable pain. We can make various refinements to the processes but we never attain perfection, just like we can never attain a perfect heat engine. 

Obviously fear, pain, stress and suffering should be temporary and we should work hard to reduce destructive and unnecessary suffering wherever we can. But we should remember the highly artificial situation of those rats and mice. A little stress is constructive. Stress prepares us all for surprises. It makes us more resiliant and clever in the face of the unknown.

It's all a fine balancing point. Too much is destructive. Too little is destructive. And each situation is different and surprising so it's hard to guess where to set the balance point.

I agree, in the present state of the world stress is very necessary and it would lessen our strength or health if we were to try to avoid it altogether. I also agree that perfection is inherently unattainable by definition.

I don't think that perfection is the goal of Abolitionism or necessary to eliminate suffering. Suffering can be removed from the process of improvement.

Do you think the inability to achieve perfection negates the possibility of eliminating suffering? Can we say that eliminating suffering is impossible? Even if it were impossible, would this invalidate the Abolitionist directive?

Abolitionist asked, "Do you think the inability to achieve perfection negates the possibility of eliminating suffering? Can we say that eliminating suffering is impossible? Even if it were impossible, would this invalidate the Abolitionist directive?"

 In summary, yes. I believe perfection can be strived for but never reached. To me the Abolitionist Project seems to be striving for a perfect world. A noble goal but one unlikely to be reached.

Abolitionist, buddhists suffer, but's that beside the point. If you can take on enough suffering, it doesn't matter anymore. That's
the way I understand enlightenment?

If the sales of LED lights is any indication, the world is certainly getting more enlightened.

"I believe perfection can be strived for but never reached. To me the Abolitionist Project seems to be striving for a perfect world. A noble goal but one unlikely to be reached."

I'd agree that by definition perfection is an ideal to be strived for and never attained. However, I think that the elimination of suffering does not require perfection. This is the definition of perfection I'm using;

"the state of being without a flaw or defect"

A computer can respond to it's environment and adapt accordingly without suffering. Perfection is not required to maintain adaptability and the ability to improve.

chimaster:

Abolitionist, buddhists suffer, but's that beside the point. If you can take on enough suffering, it doesn't matter anymore. That's
the way I understand enlightenment?

If the sales of LED lights is any indication, the world is certainly getting more enlightened.

what is the second comment in response to?

my point is that sometimes questioning is counterproductive. If you were to ask somebody for directions and they simply responded by asking you what the sound of one hand clapping is...

Just like telling someone to meditate their way to immortality - it's just rediculous. However, it is useful to say that meditation, relaxation, etc... are beneficial.

 

Abolitionist:

I'd agree that by definition perfection is an ideal to be strived for and never attained. However, I think that the elimination of suffering does not require perfection. This is the definition of perfection I'm using;

"the state of being without a flaw or defect"

A computer can respond to it's environment and adapt accordingly without suffering. Perfection is not required to maintain adaptability and the ability to improve.

But I see a flaw in your definition. When is something a flaw or defect? Flaws often depend upon context. In what context is something a flaw? Can we imagine context in which that aspect is actually an advantage? It becomes a question of optimization.

For example, let's imagine a creature which is highly optimized to run very fast, a cheetah. The cheetah has many facets which are highly tuned for sprinting but there are many contexts we can imagine where these aspects are of little use or even positive detriments. Cheetahs can't thrive in the deep ocean depths. In such an environment the cheetah is deeply flawed. Flaws always depend upon context; that's what evolution tells us.

Your example of a computer is quite telling. Look at what the computer can't do in exchange for not being able to be depressed, lonely or to experience some other agony. Computers, and software, are very fragile because they are so simple. It seems to be that robustness requires pain and other damage warning mechanisms.

On the other hand, are you so sure computers don't suffer some elementary forms of pain when things go wrong? What happens when an operating system crashes? What happens when a server is overloaded? Granted this pain is so basic it's only comparable the kind of "pain" one celled organisms experience. Anyway it's something to think about.

Abolitionist wrote, in the PGD thread, "what do you think about www.gradients.com? (an explanation of how we might move forward towards eradicating suffering from our learning systems.)"

I agree fully with Gilbert's quote, "If someone offered you a pill that would make you permanently happy, you would be well advised to run fast and run far. Emotion is a compass that tells us what to do, and a compass that is perpetually stuck on north is worthless."

In my opinion, the attempts to invalidate that quote that follow on the page fail to do so.

Yes, we want to cure mental pathologies like depression. These are pathologies where the emotional compass is permanently nailed on south. But you don't fix depression by drowning it out with mania and euphoria--pathologies were the compass is nailed on north.

Happiness is temporary but, it is recurring and, within reason, can be promoted. To force it to be everpresent, to nail that compass on north, destroys its value. It is more important to allow full and healty freedom for everyone's emotional compass.

Work to reduce unnecessary suffering but realize that total elimination is probably impossible.

That's the thing Ab, you think it's possible to engineer and build heaven. I categorically reject that. I'm not saying this is the best of all possible worlds. I'm not saying this is the worst of all possible worlds. I'm saying we need to understand what is and isn't changable about reality.

Mr. Farlops:

When is something a flaw or defect? Flaws often depend upon context. In what context is something a flaw? Can we imagine context in which that aspect is actually an advantage? It becomes a question of optimization.

True, there would be no perfect being in relation to their context from the perspective of Darwinians. However, could that being adapt to it's environment without suffering? Suffering depends on very specific biology. What if that being was designed so that it could respond to it's environment based upon intelligent design specifications - without requiring the nasty pain that we feel.

Logically designed biological circuitry feels no pain and can become as or more complex than humans - with even greater adaptability and robustness.

Rather than uploading - humans could be designed as a blissful form whereby their happiness is not dependent on the status of their support systems. From there we'd be more free to experiment with forms of consciousness potentially more wonderful than can be imagined by our primitive pleasure centers. Not being bound to pain and it's mitigation can also free us up to study the nature of all things.

But there's a catch - we'll likely not live to witness the end of suffering and if we do it will have required radical life extension and/or preservation.

 

Mr. Farlops:

"On the other hand, are you so sure computers don't suffer some elementary forms of pain when things go wrong? What happens when an operating system crashes? What happens when a server is overloaded? Granted this pain is so basic it's only comparable the kind of "pain" one celled organisms experience. Anyway it's something to think about."

That's an interesting theory or thought, I used to wonder whether plants felt pain or not. So far I haven't found any reason to think they do.

Mr. Farlops:

Yes, we want to cure mental pathologies like depression. These are pathologies where the emotional compass is permanently nailed on south. But you don't fix depression by drowning it out with mania and euphoria--pathologies were the compass is nailed on north.

Mania has side effects for self and others and is certainly not the goal. On www.gradients.com, Dave is trying to paint a mental picture of the design of a future system rather than an approach at maximizing happiness given our current design/situation.

Certainly, blissing out for the rest of your days on a hypothetical stimulation machine would make you happier than the alternative, but this would not be good practice for the rest of the world.

Mr. Farlops:

Happiness is temporary but, it is recurring and, within reason, can be promoted. To force it to be everpresent, to nail that compass on north, destroys its value. It is more important to allow full and healty freedom for everyone's emotional compass.

Work to reduce unnecessary suffering but realize that total elimination is probably impossible.

That's the thing Ab, you think it's possible to engineer and build heaven. I categorically reject that. I'm not saying this is the best of all possible worlds. I'm not saying this is the worst of all possible worlds.

I'm saying we need to understand what is and isn't changable about reality.

Full satisfaction - I'd like for all Darwinian-designed beings to have the freedom to experience this as they choose.

The project will never be impossible. That's one beauty of it. We'll never get to a point where where we can say with certainty that it's impossible. Probability exists within a given timeframe. In the near future it's very unlikely that we'll completely eliminate suffering. In the long term we become less certain.

What is and isn't changable about reality in your opinion?

Of course if a starving person asks for bread, you give him bread. To do otherwise would be uncompassioante. But to say it is a priori better for him to get the bread rather than die of starvation, I disagree with.

(I hope you're not getting bored with this subject... I can be a pain ; )