[ExI] Sleep (was Re: Dreams...)

[Anders Sandberg]

On 21/08/2012 23:48, Kelly Anderson wrote:
> Nevertheless, I have often reflected upon what a fuller life we could 
> have if the sleep cycle could be shortened or even eliminated. I would 
> think this would be a common transhumanist desire, but we haven't 
> discussed it in the time I've been on the list.

I remember often thinking "Why do I have to sleep? What if I could avoid 
it?" when involved in interesting late night projects. But also "If I 
could get away with it, why not always sleep?" when having to get up in 
the morning.

The answer to the second question is that sleep is private: whatever I 
achieve in my dreams will remain just there, while real world 
achievements will be shareable with others.

In the end I wrote a paper on sleep enhancement.
http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/5135/Sandberg_and_Ravelingien,_Sleep_better_than_medicine.pdf
Basically I argued that sleep itself has little hedonic value: it is 
going to sleep and waking up well that are pleasurable. So if we could 
have a brief pleasant going to bed, compressed sleep (doing all 
necessary biological and software updating, with perhaps the creative 
content of dreams) and then waking up rested it would save lot of time 
and be very useful. But real enhancements are unlikely to be that good 
for a long time. The real ethical troubles lie in that sleep is 
something that is part of the time coordination across society: we have 
a lot of views on each other's habits. This might lead to pressures to 
sleep or being awake in ways that conform to others rather than our own 
autonomous desires.

But I am in favor of developing ways of sleeping more efficiently 
(current drugs don't really help) and staying awake better. The ethics 
issues in the paper can be dealt with: ethics is not the end of the 
discussion, it is just something that has to be solved socially.

-- 
Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University