[ExI] Real & virtual worlds

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 23 March 2010 15:58, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
> ddraig wrote:
>
>> On 22/03/2010, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I mean, Tom, if you could choose to find studying nanotech
>>> and doing nanotech experiments just as fun and interesting
>>> as going about the countryside in medieval armor having fun,
>>> wouldn't you choose to switch?
>>
>> As a former mediaevalist, both sound equally fun to me.
>> Although, hmmm, nanotech armour, mmmmmm yummy.
>
> I'm talking about something *way* beyond "sound equally fun".
>
> Right now, playing golf sounds to me not at all fun. The
> real question is, "When I can decide what feels like fun,
> what should I decide?".
>
> What do we want to decide, and why? I would gladly switch
> my taste and expertise in chess for an equivalent taste
> and expertise in finance. Then from now on I could be on
> the receiving end of the scams, not the giving end (moral
> questions aside). But chess was fun---high finance was not.
>
> It has to *obviously* be the case that we would choose
> as evolution once chose for us: we ought to find fun
> those things most necessary to our survival and domination
> of the universe (both personal and social). ANYTHING ELSE
> IS A LOSER, in the long run. Both Mr. Darwin and simple
> logic say so.

It seems that you consider chess as not being as intrinsically
worthwhile as finance, which creates some tension as you prefer the
less worthwhile activity. An alternative would be to make it so that
chess is at least as interesting as finance, so that you can think of
those people making millions with a few mouseclicks as pitiful in
their inability to appreciate what's really important in life. That
is, you could genuinely think this way, not as a case of sour grapes.

What this example illustrates is first, second and third order desires:
(1) I really like chess;
(2) I think finance is a more worthwhile activity, and I wish I could
prefer it to chess;
(3) but I wish that I actually considered chess the more worthwhile activity.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou