I do find your overall thought process in your first few paragraphs plausible, but “anyone who disagrees with me is just not admitting that I’m right” sounds way too much like the kind of toxic reasoning I’m trying to avoid, so I’m fairly skeptical of it.
Just in case, I don’t argue that people who say they don’t want to wirehead are wrong about that. I think it’s ultimately inconsistent with a full appreciation that values are not externally validated. I think this full appreciation is prevent by biological stop-guards.
Equivalence of Wire-Heading and Modifying Values As Giving Up On External Satisfaction of our Current Values
Something I think about in relation to wireheading, so close together in my brain that when talking about one I find myself conflating with the other, is that it should follow that if values aren’t externally validated, it should be equivalent to ‘make the world better’ by (a) changing the world to fit our values or by (b) changing our values to fit the world. We have a strong preference for the former, but we could modify this preference so (b) would seem just as good a solution. So by modifying their value about solutions (a) and (b), a person in theory could then self-modify to be perfectly happy with the universe as it is. This is equivalent to wireheading, because in both cases you have a perfectly happy person without altering the universe outside their brain.
What I think people don’t admit.
I think what ‘anyone who disagrees with you is not admitting’ is that the universe in which your values are altered to match reality (or in which a person chooses to wirehead) is just as good as any other universe.
Well, maybe they do admit it, but then their arational preference for their current values is not unlike a preference for wireheading.
The goodness of the universe is subjective, and for any subjective observer, the universe is good if it satisfies their preferences. Thus, a universe in which our values are modified to match the universe is just as good as our values modified to match the universe. I think that is clear.
However, people who don’t want to wirehead compare the universe (b) (one in which their values are modified but the universe is not) with the universe they currently prefer—I guess as they are supposed to—and decide that universe (b) is not as good—relative of course to their current set of values.
But I don’t understand their preference for their original set of preferences if they know these preferences aren’t actually, really, externally better. This is the contradiction I find: they insist that external reality is what matters to them, rather than happiness through wireheading. But preferring to want to prefer a set of values that have no external significance is preferring to live in a wire-headed universe, in the sense that the values of these preferences are just in their head after all.
One difference I suppose is that with respect to our preferences we’re wired by biology, which for now is hard-wired, whereas choosing to wirehead for happiness would be a choice. If we want to minimize the extent that we’re wired, we’d stick to a minimum set. In which case, as soon as we have the choice to shake off the yoke of biological preferences, we should self-modify ourselves into blissfully happy rocks (an inert object entirely satisfied with the way the universe currently is).
That’s exactly how it appears to me, though I’m not confident this is correct. It seems like others should’ve thought of the same thing, but then they shouldn’t disagree, which they do. So either this is far less convincing than I think (maybe these safeguards don’t work in my case) or it’s wrong. Dunno right now.
Just in case, I don’t argue that people who say they don’t want to wirehead are wrong about that. I think it’s ultimately inconsistent with a full appreciation that values are not externally validated. I think this full appreciation is prevent by biological stop-guards.
Equivalence of Wire-Heading and Modifying Values As Giving Up On External Satisfaction of our Current Values
Something I think about in relation to wireheading, so close together in my brain that when talking about one I find myself conflating with the other, is that it should follow that if values aren’t externally validated, it should be equivalent to ‘make the world better’ by (a) changing the world to fit our values or by (b) changing our values to fit the world. We have a strong preference for the former, but we could modify this preference so (b) would seem just as good a solution. So by modifying their value about solutions (a) and (b), a person in theory could then self-modify to be perfectly happy with the universe as it is. This is equivalent to wireheading, because in both cases you have a perfectly happy person without altering the universe outside their brain.
What I think people don’t admit.
I think what ‘anyone who disagrees with you is not admitting’ is that the universe in which your values are altered to match reality (or in which a person chooses to wirehead) is just as good as any other universe.
Well, maybe they do admit it, but then their arational preference for their current values is not unlike a preference for wireheading.
The goodness of the universe is subjective, and for any subjective observer, the universe is good if it satisfies their preferences. Thus, a universe in which our values are modified to match the universe is just as good as our values modified to match the universe. I think that is clear.
However, people who don’t want to wirehead compare the universe (b) (one in which their values are modified but the universe is not) with the universe they currently prefer—I guess as they are supposed to—and decide that universe (b) is not as good—relative of course to their current set of values.
But I don’t understand their preference for their original set of preferences if they know these preferences aren’t actually, really, externally better. This is the contradiction I find: they insist that external reality is what matters to them, rather than happiness through wireheading. But preferring to want to prefer a set of values that have no external significance is preferring to live in a wire-headed universe, in the sense that the values of these preferences are just in their head after all.
One difference I suppose is that with respect to our preferences we’re wired by biology, which for now is hard-wired, whereas choosing to wirehead for happiness would be a choice. If we want to minimize the extent that we’re wired, we’d stick to a minimum set. In which case, as soon as we have the choice to shake off the yoke of biological preferences, we should self-modify ourselves into blissfully happy rocks (an inert object entirely satisfied with the way the universe currently is).
Yup, full agreement.
That’s exactly how it appears to me, though I’m not confident this is correct. It seems like others should’ve thought of the same thing, but then they shouldn’t disagree, which they do. So either this is far less convincing than I think (maybe these safeguards don’t work in my case) or it’s wrong. Dunno right now.