No but seriously as been pointed out, one problem with wireheading is that it tend to resemble death in the sense that you stop being a person, since you stop caring about everything you used to care about (as well as act upon) such as finding out why other people don’t like the whole idea of head wiring, you are just in a kind of bliss-stasis. I don’t see much difference between me being head-wired and me being shot in the head, then someone/something building something that is put into bliss-stasis, since I will not have any psychological continuity I’m as dead in both cases. Of course this all depends on what your attitude towards death is, I tend to be strongly against it, cherishing “my” center of narrative gravity.
Maybe you have a different take on “the self” that resembles that of Blackmore’s? That in turn makes you more willing to get rid of it and become a wirehead.
Maybe you have a different take on “the self” that resembles that of Blackmore’s? That in turn makes you more willing to get rid of it and become a wirehead.
I’m basically in complete agreement with Blackmore, yes. I also don’t consider wireheading death, at least not any more than any other event.
I’ve been in states of raw concentration that had no thought processes, no memory and no spatial or temporal perception going on, but I still perceived a specific emotion. I don’t think these states killed me, any more than blinking kills me. If it’s meaningful to say I’ve been the same person throughout meditation, then I’m the same person when wireheaded. (However, I would rather agree with Blackmore that no continuity exists, ever, though I suspect that would mostly be a disagreement about semantics.)
I don’t see how caring-about-the-narrative-center is essential to having-a-narrative-center. I can still tell fiction about a wirehead, even a static one. The wirehead themselves might not, but that doesn’t change the truth of the fiction. It seems to me that you can either reject this particular fiction (in which case I’d be interested in your reasons, not so much as justification, but more to understand how we came to differ), or you care about perceiving-the-fiction, independent of truth, in which case Omega will take care to include “this is making narrative sense” into your customized bliss.
(Disclaimer: I’m not endorsing muflax_june2011′s views anymore, though I’m still sympathetic to some forms of wireheading. muflax_june2011 would’ve just answered “screw being a person!” and rejected the whole psychological unity thing. muflax_october2011 is not so sure about that anymore.)
I’ve been in states of raw concentration that had no thought processes, no memory and no spatial or temporal perception going on, but I still perceived a specific emotion. I don’t think these states killed me, anymore than blinking kills me.
Well being in a state of raw concentration I consider somewhat as having your car in the garage, right now I’m not driving it, but it has the capabilities needed to be driven, capabilities that are regularly exercised, a person is not one brain/mental state but a repertoire of brain/mental states with diffrent temporal distribution. But I guess that you could ask Omega to configure the wiring machinery to have a multitude of states that retained to some degree what “I” would call “me”. My beef is with the whole idea of bliss-ing out of existence.
What ever makes you happy! - Wait a minute. . .
No but seriously as been pointed out, one problem with wireheading is that it tend to resemble death in the sense that you stop being a person, since you stop caring about everything you used to care about (as well as act upon) such as finding out why other people don’t like the whole idea of head wiring, you are just in a kind of bliss-stasis. I don’t see much difference between me being head-wired and me being shot in the head, then someone/something building something that is put into bliss-stasis, since I will not have any psychological continuity I’m as dead in both cases. Of course this all depends on what your attitude towards death is, I tend to be strongly against it, cherishing “my” center of narrative gravity.
Maybe you have a different take on “the self” that resembles that of Blackmore’s? That in turn makes you more willing to get rid of it and become a wirehead.
I’m basically in complete agreement with Blackmore, yes. I also don’t consider wireheading death, at least not any more than any other event.
I’ve been in states of raw concentration that had no thought processes, no memory and no spatial or temporal perception going on, but I still perceived a specific emotion. I don’t think these states killed me, any more than blinking kills me. If it’s meaningful to say I’ve been the same person throughout meditation, then I’m the same person when wireheaded. (However, I would rather agree with Blackmore that no continuity exists, ever, though I suspect that would mostly be a disagreement about semantics.)
I don’t see how caring-about-the-narrative-center is essential to having-a-narrative-center. I can still tell fiction about a wirehead, even a static one. The wirehead themselves might not, but that doesn’t change the truth of the fiction. It seems to me that you can either reject this particular fiction (in which case I’d be interested in your reasons, not so much as justification, but more to understand how we came to differ), or you care about perceiving-the-fiction, independent of truth, in which case Omega will take care to include “this is making narrative sense” into your customized bliss.
(Disclaimer: I’m not endorsing muflax_june2011′s views anymore, though I’m still sympathetic to some forms of wireheading. muflax_june2011 would’ve just answered “screw being a person!” and rejected the whole psychological unity thing. muflax_october2011 is not so sure about that anymore.)
Well being in a state of raw concentration I consider somewhat as having your car in the garage, right now I’m not driving it, but it has the capabilities needed to be driven, capabilities that are regularly exercised, a person is not one brain/mental state but a repertoire of brain/mental states with diffrent temporal distribution. But I guess that you could ask Omega to configure the wiring machinery to have a multitude of states that retained to some degree what “I” would call “me”. My beef is with the whole idea of bliss-ing out of existence.