[ExI] Bodies

[Lee Corbin]

Some of the content of this thread surprises me. It now
looks as though those of us who see value in being uploaded
are doing so for rather different reasons.

Perhaps everyone subconsciously supposed that his or her
motivations were similar, if not identical, to everyone
else's. Well, they're not. I've seen expressed here recently
the idea that being uploaded is something akin to spending
all your time in Second Life.

SURELY I speak for at least some, here, who see the benefits
of achieving uploading wholly in these other terms:

* increased security
* increased longevity
* brain tampering

Is the point not appreciated by all and sundry that one
might be able to *choose* one's interests? As soon as
enough progress is made, why would someone play games?
Any games?

Right now, we're trapped by our ancient hardware into
being rewarded by some kinds of silly things: Some
people here get excited by watching how a chess
combination unfolds, or how atomic nuclei are structured,
or who wins a particular wrestling match. Beauty, recall,
is indeed in the eye of the beholder, (even though of
course it's objectively true that certain forms have
statistical appeal to most or many normal humans).

We also know that whatever pleasures one obtains from
certain activities are mediated by brain chemicals. So
as default, why not enjoy them directly? Whereas right
now there are unfortunate side effects (perhaps even
for caffeine), that can *hardly* be claimed to necessarily
be the case for uploads, doubly so since chemistry
probably won't be involved at all.

The much harder questions have to do with what particular
experiences to select, what particular things to learn
about, and what particular goals you as a sentient will
have, or want, were it possible for you, as default, to
have intense feelings of joy, contentment, ecstasy,
satisfaction, and excitement---without having to surrender
one bit of ambition, striving, dedication, or suffer any
major alteration to your value system.

Are you finding yourself curious about enough things?
Or curious enough? Curiosity itself is simple a certain
kind of brain behavior. As for me, I'm not sufficiently
curious about knitting or kayaking, though it would be
neat to experience going off Niagara Falls in a kayak,
now that I think of it. And there are lots of things
that don't begin with the letter "k" which I intend
to become curious about if I make it.

Right now, it seems to me, people only try to imagine what
activities will generate those all these great positive
feelings in terms of what activities already generate those
feelings. Based upon our inherited mammalian anthropoid
brain architecture---and what we're accustomed to. Surely
you'll agree that by a large margin, this undersells what
will eventually be possible.

Lee