[ExI] How to build a happier brain

[Mark Walker]

Empirical studies suggest that the happy giants are more likely to have
characteristics that perfectionists advocate: more friendships, better
jobs, higher paying jobs, better marriages, better health, better grades,
and--at last to your example--more "prosocial behavior" (i.e., other
regarding virtues). To the ancient battle between hedonists and
perfectionists I say: false dilemma. Naturally, things are bit more complex
than this--this is the Reader's Digest version.



Dr. Mark Walker
Richard L. Hedden Chair of Advanced Philosophical Studies
Department of Philosophy
New Mexico State University
P.O. Box 30001, MSC 3B
Las Cruces, NM 88003-8001
USA
http://www.nmsu.edu/~philos/mark-walkers-home-page.html


On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 3:34 AM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

> On 2013-10-28 23:30, Mark Walker wrote:
>
>> Anders, I think you are one of the "happy giants" I discuss in my book:
>>
>
> Quite likely. I get used as a standard example in the ethics discussions
> around here.
>
> I wonder how a civilization that had mastered happiness would be like? It
> would still not be the utopia of David Pearce (there would still be pain),
> but it would be a place where there was far more energy and pleasure.
> Whether kindness comes naturally from happiness is another matter - a
> rather chilly idea might be a state where we are all very happy, yet do not
> care much about others.
>
> "And I feel fantastic
> And I never felt as good as how I do right now
> Except for maybe when I think of how I felt that day
> When I felt the way that I do right now, right now, right now."
>
> --
> Dr Anders Sandberg
> Future of Humanity Institute
> Oxford Martin School
> Oxford University
>
> ______________________________**_________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/**mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-**chat<http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20131029/ff2139ea/attachment.html>