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.
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.