[extropy-chat] Draft Paper on Boredom and Superlongevity

[Charlie Stross]

On 20 Jun 2006, at 15:40, MB wrote:

>
> In my experience some people simply *are* bored. They don't do  
> anything.
> They do not or cannot or will not even amuse themselves. I fear  
> there's
> not much can be done about that - other than making resources so  
> few and
> far between that they *must* continue struggling just to survive.  
> Hard to
> be bored then! :/

Let's go one step further:

Is boredom a neurological illness, like endogenous depression?

That's an honest question -- I don't know the answer. Bear in mind  
the possibility that there may be multiple types of boredom --  
boredom due to lack of stimulus/opportunity for exploration, and  
boredom of endogenous nature, spring to mind as possibilities. Then  
again, is the emergence of boredom as a pathological condition  
something that can be accounted for via sociobiology?



-- Charlie