[extropy-chat] limits of computer feeling

[John K Clark]

: Stathis Papaioannou

> you could arbitrarily reassign the pleasure to goal-directed activity

Well sure you COULD, but WOULD you? Grand and glorious goals are difficult
to achieve and take a long time; much easier to just turn a knob and
immediately get a rush of pride and satisfaction in a job well done.

> for example, you could simply decide to be a stoic

Well sure you COULD, but WOULD you? After a while you might notice that
being stoic isn't a lot of laughs.

I'll crank up the happiness level just a tad, oh that's much better, maybe
just  a little more, even better, just one more small increase won't hurt
anything.....

> Finally, what would be wrong with a life of continuous, undifferentiated
> pleasure?

I wasn't making a value judgment; I was simply observing that drug addiction
could be the reason that the universe does not appear to have been
engineered.

  John K Clark