This perspective does explain why I would be much less worried about wireheading if I was older than I am right now and had already reproduced. If I had kids who were off having their own kids, I could think “Ah good, my DNA is off replicating itself and at this point, and whether or not I die is unlikely to change that. In fact, the best way to help them out would probably be to make sure I don’t spend too much of the money they might theoretically inherit, so if wireheading was cheaper than a world yacht tour, my kids and grandkids might even benefit from me deciding to wirehead.
That being said, I say this as someone who hasn’t even experienced a world yacht tour. I mean, now that I’m a working adult, I can barely manage to acquire much more then about 10 consecutive days of not working, which gives one just barely enough time to scratch through the surface of your current hedonism and encounter boredom with choices (The last time I was bored and had a choice of activity, it felt refreshing because of how RARELY I’m bored and have choices, as opposed to being bored because you are stuck in your current activity with no control) Before deciding to wirehead, it seems like it might be well worth while to at the very least take some time to experience being retired to make sure I have a good feel for what it is that I’m giving up.
But I also realize at this point I also feel like it’s a bit presumptuous of me to say what I would want at 70 or so, at 27. I’ve experienced too many changes in philosophy in the last 10 years to feel assured that my current set of desires are stable enough to suggest something that far in the future. I mean, it doesn’t feel likely they’ll change, but it didn’t feel likely they would change before either, and yet they did.
So do you think these reasons for maybe wanting to wirehead at 70 would be good enough reasons to kill yourself? Because if you are accepting Xachariah’s response then it seems like that is the standard you’d have to meet.
Yes, there are definitely a set of circumstances where I could see myself willing to essentially suicide when I’m significantly older. I mean, when you’re old, cheap wireheading seems to be equivalent to being given a choice between:
1: Die pleasantly and painlessly after a grand farewell party, allowing your family to have a good inheritance and ascend to the technological equivalent of heaven.
2: Die in a hospital bed after horrible mind crushing suffering where you are incoherent, draining away money and resources for your family, and then nothing.
If you’re going to die anyway (and I am assuming Immortal life is not on the table. If it is, then the entire scenario is substantially different), option 1 sure sounds a lot better.
And yes, there are also a large number of circumstances where I can see myself not wireheading as well. Maybe my Grandfatherly advice will prove absolutely crucial to my grandchildren, who think that my great grandchildren just won’t be the same without getting to meet me in person. It’s entirely possible that everyone around me will still need me even when I’m 70, or still when I’m 80, or even when I’m 90. (With medical technology improving, maybe 90 will be the new 70?)
That’s why I mentioned I’d want to get a feel for retired life before deciding to wirehead. I don’t really know what it’s going to be like being a retired person for me.
For that matter, the entire concept of retirement may not even be around by the time I’m 70. It’s not just my own philosophy that can change in 43 years. Our entire economic system might be different. And I also had the implicit assumption of cheap wireheading, but it may turn out that wireheading would be horribly expensive. That’s an entirely different set of calculations.
Before deciding to wirehead, it seems like it might be well worth while to at the very least take some time to experience being retired to make sure I have a good feel for what it is that I’m giving up.
The scenario stipulates your wireheading experience will be the best one possible. If you really enjoy yacht tours, you’ll experience simulated yacht tours. You’re not giving anything up in terms of experience.
That’s a good point, and It made me think about this again, but my understanding is that I think I must be giving up SOME possible experience. Wouldn’t it break the laws of physics for a finitely sized wireheading world to contain more possible states to experience than the universe which contains the wireheading world and also contains other things?
Now, for yacht tours, I don’t think this matters. Yacht tours don’t require that kind of complexity. Actually, I’m not even sure how this kind of complexity would be expressed or if it’s something I could notice even if I was a theoretical physicist with trillions of dollars of equipment.
But after rethinking this, I think this complexity represents some type of experience and I don’t want to rush into trading it away before I understand it unless I feel like I have to, so I still feel like I may want to wait on wireheading.
I suppose an alternate way of looking at it might be that I have a box of mystery, which might contain the empty vastness of space or some other concept beyond my understanding, and if I trade it, I will never be able to access it again, but in exchange I get offered the best possible experience of everything that ISN’T in the box, many of which I already know.
There is a distinct possiblity I’m just being irrationally afraid of rushing into making permanent irreversible decisions. I’ve had that type of fear for decisions which are much more minor than wireheading, and it might be coming up again.
That being said, being unsure of this point represents a contradiction to something that I had thought earlier. So I’m definitely being inconsistent about something and I appreciate you pointing it out. I’ll try to break it down and see if I can determine which point I need to discard.
This perspective does explain why I would be much less worried about wireheading if I was older than I am right now and had already reproduced. If I had kids who were off having their own kids, I could think “Ah good, my DNA is off replicating itself and at this point, and whether or not I die is unlikely to change that. In fact, the best way to help them out would probably be to make sure I don’t spend too much of the money they might theoretically inherit, so if wireheading was cheaper than a world yacht tour, my kids and grandkids might even benefit from me deciding to wirehead.
That being said, I say this as someone who hasn’t even experienced a world yacht tour. I mean, now that I’m a working adult, I can barely manage to acquire much more then about 10 consecutive days of not working, which gives one just barely enough time to scratch through the surface of your current hedonism and encounter boredom with choices (The last time I was bored and had a choice of activity, it felt refreshing because of how RARELY I’m bored and have choices, as opposed to being bored because you are stuck in your current activity with no control) Before deciding to wirehead, it seems like it might be well worth while to at the very least take some time to experience being retired to make sure I have a good feel for what it is that I’m giving up.
But I also realize at this point I also feel like it’s a bit presumptuous of me to say what I would want at 70 or so, at 27. I’ve experienced too many changes in philosophy in the last 10 years to feel assured that my current set of desires are stable enough to suggest something that far in the future. I mean, it doesn’t feel likely they’ll change, but it didn’t feel likely they would change before either, and yet they did.
So do you think these reasons for maybe wanting to wirehead at 70 would be good enough reasons to kill yourself? Because if you are accepting Xachariah’s response then it seems like that is the standard you’d have to meet.
Yes, there are definitely a set of circumstances where I could see myself willing to essentially suicide when I’m significantly older. I mean, when you’re old, cheap wireheading seems to be equivalent to being given a choice between:
1: Die pleasantly and painlessly after a grand farewell party, allowing your family to have a good inheritance and ascend to the technological equivalent of heaven. 2: Die in a hospital bed after horrible mind crushing suffering where you are incoherent, draining away money and resources for your family, and then nothing.
If you’re going to die anyway (and I am assuming Immortal life is not on the table. If it is, then the entire scenario is substantially different), option 1 sure sounds a lot better.
And yes, there are also a large number of circumstances where I can see myself not wireheading as well. Maybe my Grandfatherly advice will prove absolutely crucial to my grandchildren, who think that my great grandchildren just won’t be the same without getting to meet me in person. It’s entirely possible that everyone around me will still need me even when I’m 70, or still when I’m 80, or even when I’m 90. (With medical technology improving, maybe 90 will be the new 70?)
That’s why I mentioned I’d want to get a feel for retired life before deciding to wirehead. I don’t really know what it’s going to be like being a retired person for me.
For that matter, the entire concept of retirement may not even be around by the time I’m 70. It’s not just my own philosophy that can change in 43 years. Our entire economic system might be different. And I also had the implicit assumption of cheap wireheading, but it may turn out that wireheading would be horribly expensive. That’s an entirely different set of calculations.
The scenario stipulates your wireheading experience will be the best one possible. If you really enjoy yacht tours, you’ll experience simulated yacht tours. You’re not giving anything up in terms of experience.
That’s a good point, and It made me think about this again, but my understanding is that I think I must be giving up SOME possible experience. Wouldn’t it break the laws of physics for a finitely sized wireheading world to contain more possible states to experience than the universe which contains the wireheading world and also contains other things?
Now, for yacht tours, I don’t think this matters. Yacht tours don’t require that kind of complexity. Actually, I’m not even sure how this kind of complexity would be expressed or if it’s something I could notice even if I was a theoretical physicist with trillions of dollars of equipment.
But after rethinking this, I think this complexity represents some type of experience and I don’t want to rush into trading it away before I understand it unless I feel like I have to, so I still feel like I may want to wait on wireheading.
I suppose an alternate way of looking at it might be that I have a box of mystery, which might contain the empty vastness of space or some other concept beyond my understanding, and if I trade it, I will never be able to access it again, but in exchange I get offered the best possible experience of everything that ISN’T in the box, many of which I already know.
There is a distinct possiblity I’m just being irrationally afraid of rushing into making permanent irreversible decisions. I’ve had that type of fear for decisions which are much more minor than wireheading, and it might be coming up again.
That being said, being unsure of this point represents a contradiction to something that I had thought earlier. So I’m definitely being inconsistent about something and I appreciate you pointing it out. I’ll try to break it down and see if I can determine which point I need to discard.