chimaster:

Of course if a starving person asks for bread, you give him bread. To do otherwise would be uncompassionate. 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 ; )

not at all! I really respect others who post their views here in order to further discussion and understanding among the community. and this subject is one I never get bored of - though at times I need a break.

Please tell me on what grounds you find reason to disagree. Am I correct to assume it is because you think the person should starve if they wish to?

The Abolitionist project recently discussed in 'Philosophy Now' ;

http://www.hedweb.com/hedethic/end-suffering.html

Abolitionist:

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.

There's very little reason for me to share my intelligences about these matters if you do not have the scientific, emotional, or philosophical confidence and competence to address them meaningfully. Ridiculous because your mental state is too provincial to even grasp deep time- into the future or the past {which you should make accessible to yourself regardless of what your expectations are about your temporal duration}, or because your "experts" have declared such an eventuality as "impossible"?

Personally, Abolitionist, I don't believe you even have the SF background to make your ideas interest me...

It's boring.
 

Chironian:

deep time - into the future or the past {which should be accessible regardless of what your expectations are about your temporal duration, or that your "experts" have declared such an eventuality as "impossible"?}

I've not declared that impossible Chironian.

Not that I'm exactly sure what you mean.

Perhaps you should start a post about it.

Abolitionist wrote, "However, could that being adapt to it's environment without suffering?"

Depends on what you mean by suffering. I think you and I have very different definitions of what suffering is. I think my definition is much broader than yours. For me suffering is an emergent phenomenon that lies near one end of a continuum. At the other end is the very basic adversive reactions found at the level of one celled organisms. By my definition, for example, plants have a pain response. They sense and react to trauma, stress and damage.

Pain ultimately is just a warning system that says, "Hey, this is bad for you, do something about it."

If you broaden your definition and realize that suffering is emergent from simpler biology, you'll see it's incorporated in every living thing there is. If an organism can sense and react to damage and stress, it has a pain response. We could even go further and say that one of the criteria of life is to have a pain response.

I'm pretty sure this will still hold true even for designed organisms. Pain is a useful feedback mechanism to keep artificial organisms from damaging themselves.

Remember when the terminator tried to explain its pain response in the second movie of that series? The cyborg could shut it's pain response off or ignore it but is this really any different from the shock response found in humans?

Abolitionist wrote, "Suffering depends on very specific biology."

Again this statement assumes a very specific definition of suffering. My definition says that pain is so basic that it is part of definition of life itself. Suffering, as I assume you're defining it, is many, many, many levels removed from what I'm talking about. Please see above.

Abolitionist wrote, "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."

So all you're really talking about here is a voluntary shock mechanism or a voluntary drug gland. That's doable. Just so long as it can be shut off to return the organism to default homeostasis, I have no problem with this. Such a drug gland or precision shock reponse should probably have safety restraints to prevent naive users from stupidly abusing it.

Abolitionist wrote, "Logically designed biological circuitry feels no pain and can become as or more complex than humans..."

By my definitions above, this is logically impossible. On the other hand, voluntary control over the pain response is possible, is already availible in *all* organisms and can be refined further by science.

Abolitionist wrote, "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."

By my definition they do; please see the above. That's why I cited the example of computers. Complex hardware and software can sense and react to damage; that's pain.

Abolitionist wrote, "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."

Sounds like Dave wants us to build a voluntarily controlled pharmacy in the brain to replace or suppliment the partially voluntary one evolution has already provided us. As we understand the mechanisms better our control over them will become more finely tuned. Prozac is much more refined that laudenum. Future drugs and therapies will be more refined still.

The only problem I have with this is the prospect for abuse and fragility due lack of generalization.

We could optimize our pleasure and pain mechanisms but this comes at a cost of lossing generality. On the other hand, no organism can be a perfect generalist either because, in my opinion, the problem space is infinitely large. We find in nature both optimizers and generalizers. None of these are perfect and, new solutions are always being generated and tried.

As long as we keep these unavoidable aspects in mind, I have no problem with drug glands and such.

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

Full satisfaction is possible but it's only temporary. It comes and goes repeatedly throughout an organism's life. When we are deeply tired, falling asleep is deeply pleasurable but, then we are rested and sated so, we rise to wakefulness. Satiation is temporary. It's a mechanism that keeps us busy satisfying new and different needs.

In fact I could make the argument that addiction is a disease where the satiation mechanism is broken. Addicts don't seem to learn when enough is enough. They don't attend to other needs of their body and mind and society.

Abolitionist wrote, "What is and isn't changable about reality in your opinion?"

Error is unavoidable.
Change is unavoidable.
Pain, being the part of the definition of life itself, is, sad to say, sometimes unavoidable.

On the other hand, look at the flipside of that last one. Pleasure and satiation are also sometimes unavoidable.

Mr. Farlops:

Abolitionist wrote, "However, could that being adapt to it's environment without suffering?"

Depends on what you mean by suffering. I think you and I have very different definitions of what suffering is. I think my definition is much broader than yours. For me suffering is an emergent phenomenon that lies near one end of a continuum. At the other end is the very basic adversive reactions found at the level of one celled organisms. By my definition, for example, plants have a pain response. They sense and react to trauma, stress and damage.

The general definition of suffering is any aversive subjective experience. A system of detection and learning is not the same thing as pain. For example : computers do not feel pain. Pain implies an emotional reaction that requires very specific biology to support. That's why I think we need a more narrow definition of pain than you suggest. IMO, it's too misleading to use such broad connotations for the word pain.

Mr. Farlops:

Abolitionist wrote, "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."

So all you're really talking about here is a voluntary shock mechanism or a voluntary drug gland. That's doable. Just so long as it can be shut off to return the organism to default homeostasis, I have no problem with this. Such a drug gland or precision shock reponse should probably have safety restraints to prevent naive users from stupidly abusing it.

Could you elaborate on this concept? Are you talking about an implant?

Mr. Farlops:

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

Full satisfaction is possible but it's only temporary. It comes and goes repeatedly throughout an organism's life. When we are deeply tired, falling asleep is deeply pleasurable but, then we are rested and sated so, we rise to wakefulness. Satiation is temporary. It's a mechanism that keeps us busy satisfying new and different needs.

Yes, with our current design I agree it works that way. We know that beings will inherently choose that which is most satisfying to them based on their genetic design and environmental history. Therefore the Abolitionist project, if undertaken correctly, would increase the will-power of humans.

We're talking about making satisfaction available while improving functionality in all circumstances.

Abolitionist:

The general definition of suffering is any aversive subjective experience. A system of detection and learning is not the same thing as pain. For example : computers do not feel pain. Pain implies an emotional reaction that requires very specific biology to support. That's why I think we need a more narrow definition of pain than you suggest. IMO, it's too misleading to use such broad connotations for the word pain.

Your definition is too narrow by focusing strictly on human emotional reactions to pain. This limits its usefulness because it ignores where pain ultimately comes from.

Pain is the sensation of and reaction to stress and damage. As such, pain is basic to all life. Life would be extremely fragile without it.

Abolitionist:

Could you elaborate on this concept? Are you talking about an implant?

Could be. Could be lots of things. The point is that I've never denied that such things are possible. Of course we'll have the technology to control our pain and emotional responses to a high degree of precision and subtlety. We're already partially there with the psychopharmaceuticals we have.

I just said "drug gland" because that's the expression used in a science fiction book I read recently. At some point, it might be possible to build a gland in the body that is controlled by the conscious brain. You think a password and it starts dumping adrenaline or noradrenaline into the bloodstream. Something like that--that might be one way we can do it.

Of course this gland or implant or whatever would have to be built with safety mechanisms to prevent abuse or misuse.

Abolitionist:

Yes, with our current design I agree it works that way. We know that beings will inherently choose that which is most satisfying to them based on their genetic design and environmental history. Therefore the Abolitionist project, if undertaken correctly, would increase the will-power of humans.

We're talking about making satisfaction available while improving functionality in all circumstances.

You still seem to be ignoring the second part of my statements about satisfaction. Satisfaction is temporary. It ebbs and flows as desires and needs change. That's the way it's supposed to be. If it wasn't that way, organisms would destroy themselves or waste valuable time in unproductive activities. Satisfaction is a restorative mechanism, just like pain is. That's why it comes and goes.

Addicts have broken satisfaction machinary in their brains. They want to be continously and permanently sated no matter what the cost is to themselves. This throws us back into Gilbert's quote again. To permanently nail us into happiness mode all the time is the same thing as addiction. An organism's restorative mechanisms must be allowed to rebalance themselves or homeostasis breaks.

There's nothing wrong with curing mental pathologies like depression. There's nothing wrong with tweaking ourselves or, occasionally jolting ourselves with happiness from time to time. So long as it doesn't become addictive or deaden us to change, we're cool.

You keep forgetting this basic point, Ab. I'm growing tired of repeating myself.

Mr. Farlops:

Your definition is too narrow by focusing strictly on human emotional reactions to pain. This limits its usefulness because it ignores where pain ultimately comes from.

Pain is the sensation of and reaction to stress and damage. As such, pain is basic to all life. Life would be extremely fragile without it.

There is a difference between pain and a reaction to stress and damage. A cell does not feel pain even though it experiences stress, damage, and change. But this is really a semantic argument I think.

If we continue to use the definition of pain you suggest - then Abolitionism is the elimination of suffering rather than pain.

Mr. Farlops:

You still seem to be ignoring the second part of my statements about satisfaction. Satisfaction is temporary. It ebbs and flows as desires and needs change. That's the way it's supposed to be. If it wasn't that way, organisms would destroy themselves or waste valuable time in unproductive activities. Satisfaction is a restorative mechanism, just like pain is. That's why it comes and goes.

Addicts have broken satisfaction machinary in their brains. They want to be continously and permanently sated no matter what the cost is to themselves. This throws us back into Gilbert's quote again. To permanently nail us into happiness mode all the time is the same thing as addiction. An organism's restorative mechanisms must be allowed to rebalance themselves or homeostasis breaks.

There's nothing wrong with curing mental pathologies like depression. There's nothing wrong with tweaking ourselves or, occasionally jolting ourselves with happiness from time to time. So long as it doesn't become addictive or deaden us to change, we're cool.

You keep forgetting this basic point, Ab. I'm growing tired of repeating myself.

"The way it's supposed to be?"

There is a distinction between pain (if we use your definition) and suffering. An organism may experience the functional equivalents of pain without suffering. This currently happens - for example many changes happen in your body without you being aware of them. There is adaptation without pain.

Do you find this to address your point? If not, please explain.

IMO there is good reason to distinquish between the information transmitted by the body's various systems and pain. Information is not the same thing as the pain that causes us to suffer.

Abolitionist:

There is a difference between pain and a reaction to stress and damage. A cell does not feel pain even though it experiences stress, damage, and change. But this is really a semantic argument I think.

If it's a question about semantics, then it matters. If we can't agree on meanings and definitions, then it's unlikely either of us will convince the other.

Abolitionist:

There is a distinction between pain (if we use your definition) and suffering. An organism may experience the functional equivalents of pain without suffering. This currently happens - for example many changes happen in your body without you being aware of them. There is adaptation without pain.

Okay, I find that acceptable. There are many examples of damage happening in a person's body without that person being consciously aware of it. Heart disease is the silent killer because by the time you feel something it's already too late.

The only point I wanted to make plain is that pain or suffering are emergent phenomena that are related to one another. They can be controlled. They can be turned off.

 But to leave them off permanently is dangerous and, in some cases, may be fatal.

There is a disease--the name eludes me at the moment--that some children are born with where their nervous systems are so damaged that they don't feel pain at all. Nearly every one of these children die at in early age because their bodies literally tear apart because the conscious mind is unaware that damage is occuring.

But let's put that aside for a moment. You're not directly concerned with pain itself. I only mention this because the examples that follow will make more sense, when you consider these kids.

Depression is bad because the mind is incapable for feeling any other emotion except sadness. Depressed people eventually lose all reference to any other emotional state. Their sadness almost becomes meaningless because they can barely remember what any other emotion feels like. If anything, depression is not merely "feeling a bit blue." It's more like feeling nothing emotional at all.

Now imagine the opposite, mania. Someone who is permanently happy eventually numbs because they have no other reference to any other emotional state. They slowly forget what other emotional states feel like. Is it really accurate to call that happiness?

I think this is what Gilbert was trying to get at in his quote. Locking someone in one state or another is bad. There needs to be drift, reaction and change in people's emotional states otherwise emotional homeostasis is lost and illness sets in.

Mr. Farlops:

If it's a question about semantics, then it matters. If we can't agree on meanings and definitions, then it's unlikely either of us will convince the other.

The IASP recommends a distinction between the psychological aspects of the pain response and informational 'nociception'. ;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain

This makes sense to me as the nociception signal itself is just information (nerve signals), while the subjective experience of pain is created by the mind.

Mr. Farlops:

There are many examples of damage happening in a person's body without that person being consciously aware of it. Heart disease is the silent killer because by the time you feel something it's already too late.

True. There are also examples of how processes normally labelled 'healthy' or optimal given our genetic design occur without knowledge. This is an example of how an intelligent and complex system can adapt without suffering.

Mr. Farlops:

But let's put that aside for a moment. You're not directly concerned with pain itself. I only mention this because the examples that follow will make more sense, when you consider these kids.

Depression is bad because the mind is incapable for feeling any other emotion except sadness. Depressed people eventually lose all reference to any other emotional state. Their sadness almost becomes meaningless because they can barely remember what any other emotion feels like. If anything, depression is not merely "feeling a bit blue." It's more like feeling nothing emotional at all.

Depression hurts. Deeply depressed individuals are less able to experience reward but still able to experience pain. This is just a guess, but I think in most cases of depression the ability to experience pleasure is inhibited more than the ability to experience pain.

Mr. Farlops:

Now imagine the opposite, mania. Someone who is permanently happy eventually numbs because they have no other reference to any other emotional state. They slowly forget what other emotional states feel like. Is it really accurate to call that happiness?

I think this is what Gilbert was trying to get at in his quote. Locking someone in one state or another is bad. There needs to be drift, reaction and change in people's emotional states otherwise emotional homeostasis is lost and illness sets in.

Yes, if that individual is permanently happy (subjectively) then we can say that they have achieved happiness. However, society would not allow this unless they were concurrently designed to function in specific ways. A good society would find ways to make it's individuals more functional while lessening their suffering and improving their happiness.

Informational gradients already exist in our own design as part of the nociception system - and they are distinct from suffering. Informational gradients and distinctions give rise to the ability to experience and adapt. These gradients and distinctions can exist separately from the experience of pain.

Mr. Farlops:

I think there is a limit to how much we can pefect this process. Complex systems, even ones we build, always have a way of surprising us eventually. And if we throw complex systems (Your imagined divinely happy superhumans.) into larger complex systems (The real world.) to interact things get very obscure and perverse indeed. We'll never get to a point where we're somehow cranking out perfect individuals that never fail in a perfect world. The universe is infinitely complex and perversely surprising. In my opinion that's what makes it so wonderful.

We may make advances and reduce suffering but it will never be a finished process.

You would have us believe that the world can be reduced to some perfectly ordered clockwork where there are never any flaws or errors of any kind and nothing ever disturbs this crystalline joy. Ugh! How boring!

Without suffering, how could we get bored?

True any created being would appear imperfect or fail from some perspective - however I think we can eventually separate the happiness of that being from the external perception of failure.

We already have examples in nature (and within our own bodies) of how a complex biological system can evolve and adapt without suffering.

Mr. Farlops:

The sites you've pointed me to so far never seem to have all these details accounted for. They seem like a lot of handwaving to me. "...and then a miracle occurs and we are all universally and forever happy!" You've hinted at some vague directions to go in, wireheading, psychopharmacology, simulated worlds, etc. but, when I've pointed out limitations to each of these techniques you get vague again and talk past my objections.

How could they have all details accounted for?

which reference to limitations are you referring to? please provide an example.

The fact is we have no way of knowing what the future will hold, all we can do in good faith at this point is to highlight promising research.

Would you hold the same argument against anti-aging proponents - that aging can never be reversed and eliminated (barring unexpected accidents) because we haven't fully identified how to go about it yet?

Abolitionist:

Mr. Farlops:

I think this is what Gilbert was trying to get at in his quote. Locking someone in one state or another is bad. There needs to be drift, reaction and change in people's emotional states otherwise emotional homeostasis is lost and illness sets in.

Yes, if that individual is permanently happy (subjectively) then we can say that they have achieved happiness.

You can say that. I disagree. I say that locking someone's brain into one emotional state, even a good one, is pathological.

Abolitionist:

However, society would not allow this unless they were concurrently designed to function in specific ways. A good society would find ways to make it's individuals more functional while lessening their suffering and improving their happiness.

Sure. That's a vague set of statements that many would find little to disagree with.

But you still haven't confirmed or denied if the ultimate goal of the Abolitionist Project is to take away individual emotional and mental freedom, "for their own good."

1. Are you saying "Everyone is happy. They have no choice?"
2. Are you saying, "We should work to reduce suffering in the world but we realize it's not a perfect world and our task will never be complete?"

 

Which one is it?

Abolitionist:

Without suffering, how could we get bored?

Your model of what the world should be like is indistinguable from the stupor of drug addiction. No one has any incentive to change. Change invites risk. Risk threatens the world you claim is perfect. Satisfaction and satiation are meant to be temporary, not permanent. To paraphrase Nydra in another thread, we may as well just OD people with heroin and kill them at the same stroke. They'll die utterly happy. Or just lock them in an unchanging simulation with their pleasure centers saturated in current.

Of course most won't realize it but there is a whole of change and risk outside the illusion you've given them. That's what I mean by boring. Sure, they aren't bored. You've given them the illusion of satisfaction by limiting all their choices. Progress stops. If that's all you want, we can achieve your plan very easily right now.

To choose is to risk setbacks. To learn is sometimes painful. People must be free to make mistakes and to occasionally suffer otherwise the world they live in may as well be hell. The best prisons are the ones where the prisoners don't realize they're in one.

Abolitionist:

True any created being would appear imperfect or fail from some perspective - however I think we can eventually separate the happiness of that being from the external perception of failure.

Which is just my point above. External perceptions still count. Lock an alcoholic in a room with an endless supply of high quality booze and they've be happy until their liver gives out or until their brain shrivels to severe retardation. For them it's heaven but from the outside it's horrifying. 

Abolitionist:

We already have examples in nature (and within our own bodies) of how a complex biological system can evolve and adapt without suffering.

Okay, let's table that. Give me an example.

Abolitionist:

How could they have all details accounted for?

which reference to limitations are you referring to?

I've given you plenty. I've stated many objections in many of these threads and you never quite answer them with something specific.

Abolitionist:

The fact is we have no way of knowing what the future will hold, all we can do in good faith at this point is to highlight promising research.

Okay. I accept that and I'll try to avoid harping on it in the future.

As long as you say, "here is something that might improve mental health," or, "Here is something that may open new kinds of consciousness to us," or "here is something that may help us to understand how the mental state of satisfaction works in the human brain," I have no problem with that. But if you say or imply, "Heaven is actually possible for us to engineer." I just don't buy it.

Maybe it's because I'm an atheist. Maybe it's because I believe I'm a realist. I just don't believe in any form of perfection. It's a messy world. I take a perverse glory in that. At least it ain't boring. 

Abolitionist:

Would you hold the same argument against anti-aging proponents - that aging can never be reversed and eliminated (barring unexpected accidents) because we haven't fully identified how to go about it yet?

I hope I wouldn't.

Okay. Good point. You might eventually be right. Prove me wrong. I'd be pleased to finally eat my words. Tell you what, let's take this up again in a hundred years. 

I don't think you can compare "address senescence medically" with "attempt to eliminate all semblance of suffering in the Universe" (forgive me if I'm oversimplifying here).  That sounds like an "apples and oranges" fallacy -- aging is only one of many, many potential issues that humankind can try to address. Sure, it's a big one, but I don't see anything transcendent about fixing it.  Maintaining a biological machine that already exists (or transferring a personhood / consciousness to a different substrate so as to maintain a sense of personal continuity and identity) seems like a miniscule task compared to some grand scheme to maximize happiness.

 And with regard to the "maximization of happiness", I'm reminded of a section in one of my favorite books, "A Wrinkle In Time", in which the main characters end up on a planet called Camazots...on which everyone is very, very happy but in which all semblance of individuality has been eliminated.

"Perhaps you do not realize that on Camazotz we have conquered all illness, all deformity...We let no one suffer.  It is so much kinder to simply annihilate anyone who is ill.  Nobody has weeks and weeks of runny noses and sore throats.  Rather than endure such discomfort, they are simply put to sleep.

Why do you think we have wars at home?  Why do you think people get confused and unhappy?  Because they all live their own, separate, individual lives.  I've been trying to explain to you in the simplest possible way that on Camazots individuals have been done away with.  Camazotz is ONE mind.  It's IT.  And that's why everyone's so happy and efficient."

To me, that sounds pretty dystopian.
 

Mr. Farlops:

You can say that. I disagree. I say that locking someone's brain into one emotional state, even a good one, is pathological.

I'd agree. One emotional state for the whole brain would be counter-productive. Proper distribution of functions would be required.

You have to take the concept of perpetual happiness that has been separated from useful functionality in context - it would not happen until society has become a very different entity perhaps thousands of years down the road. Transcending suffering will be a gradually process though there may be significant discoveries and solutions.

Mr. Farlops:

Abolitionist:

However, society would not allow this unless they were concurrently designed to function in specific ways. A good society would find ways to make it's individuals more functional while lessening their suffering and improving their happiness.

Sure. That's a vague set of statements that many would find little to disagree with.

But you still haven't confirmed or denied if the ultimate goal of the Abolitionist Project is to take away individual emotional and mental freedom, "for their own good."

1. Are you saying "Everyone is happy. They have no choice?"
2. Are you saying, "We should work to reduce suffering in the world but we realize it's not a perfect world and our task will never be complete?"

In the here and now - it's counterproductive to eliminate choice - because humans would not be happy with such an infrastructure. I think we need to deal compassionately and realistically with human nature therefore we'll have to offer upgrades as optional - however they will need to be enforced in some circumstances.

Just as we enforce the use of certain technologies now - because it causes suffering when humans neglect to use them.

I agree that the world will never be perfect, however I don't see perfection as necessary for the elimination of suffering.

The only reason we need suffering right now is because our design incorporates it.