Neurologically, wanting and liking are two separate albeit very related things. When you measure liking and wanting, you find that you can manipulate the two separately.
If your dopamine receptors are blocked, you don’t want things as badly, even though your enjoy them equally well. If you increase dopamine, you (or experimental rats) work harder for something, even though you don’t enjoy it more when you get it.
I have the subjective impression that when I’m happy for no particularly external reason, I still want to do things that I previously wanted to do. So directly stimulated pleasure centers would be pleasant, but I’d still want external things.
See the link for specific experiments.
EDIT: Oops, I didn’t read carefully enough and didn’t consider wireheading which stimulated non-want parts of your brain. Please ignore this comment.
I don’t think that addresses the substance of the argument. Wireheading doesn’t have to be about increasing dopamine; what if you were wireheaded to really, really like being wireheaded? And, in case it mattered, not to like anything else, so you don’t have any regrets about the wireheading.
The “Much Better Life” scenario is even more different; here, you presumably continue wanting and liking much the same things that you used to, unless you choose to self-modify later, you just get rid of the frustrating parts of life at the expense of no longer living in the real world.
Did you read this?
Neurologically, wanting and liking are two separate albeit very related things. When you measure liking and wanting, you find that you can manipulate the two separately.
If your dopamine receptors are blocked, you don’t want things as badly, even though your enjoy them equally well. If you increase dopamine, you (or experimental rats) work harder for something, even though you don’t enjoy it more when you get it.
I have the subjective impression that when I’m happy for no particularly external reason, I still want to do things that I previously wanted to do. So directly stimulated pleasure centers would be pleasant, but I’d still want external things.
See the link for specific experiments.
EDIT: Oops, I didn’t read carefully enough and didn’t consider wireheading which stimulated non-want parts of your brain. Please ignore this comment.
That was the first thing his list of arguments linked to.
I don’t think that addresses the substance of the argument. Wireheading doesn’t have to be about increasing dopamine; what if you were wireheaded to really, really like being wireheaded? And, in case it mattered, not to like anything else, so you don’t have any regrets about the wireheading.
The “Much Better Life” scenario is even more different; here, you presumably continue wanting and liking much the same things that you used to, unless you choose to self-modify later, you just get rid of the frustrating parts of life at the expense of no longer living in the real world.