Alternately, imagine being able to explicitly fork and merge streams of cognition as easily and explicitly as one can fork code in git. You could imagine each stream gets its own set of permissions, so the left hand might really not know what the right tentacle is doing.
Humans (roughly) desire to be happy. Imagine aliens who desire to be angry instead.
While we are happy we have certain mental dispositions which are unrelated to the ones we desire when we desire happiness. Happy people are more likely to give to charity. Happy people (or at least people on certain antidepressants) are also more likely to judge harming others as wrong—whether this translates into less actual harm, I don’t know. Further, people tend to prefer that others be happy—that’s why people are always telling depressed people to smile.
Imagine that in these aliens, happiness worked in terms of its behavioral effects as it does in humans, as did anger. But aliens might still want themselves to be angry even as they want others to be happy.
Further, people tend to prefer that others be happy—that’s why people are always telling depressed people to smile.
Yes, but also smiling makes people happier. So it is pretty good advice for depressed people.
But aliens might still want themselves to be angry even as they want others to be happy.
By this you mean that when these aliens get what they want, instead of feeling content and magnanimous, they feel discontent and destructive? Don’t you see how that could be an evolutionary handicap?
I’m not sure anger necessarily leads to discontent. If you want to get mad as hell and break things, you might feel better after doing so if you’ve been stifling a lot of discontent up to then. I don’t really pretend to know what’s going on in the head of a rioter but this seems possible.
I don’t mean that actions anger predisposes you toward leave you discontented, I mean that part of the physiological emotion of anger is discontentment.
Yeah, I guess it could be a handicap. But then human brains have so many bizarre flaws and spandrels that I think we could get away with swapping a few of ours for this one.
You have read A Fire Upon The Deep, right?
Alternately, imagine being able to explicitly fork and merge streams of cognition as easily and explicitly as one can fork code in git. You could imagine each stream gets its own set of permissions, so the left hand might really not know what the right tentacle is doing.
Humans (roughly) desire to be happy. Imagine aliens who desire to be angry instead.
Isn’t it the act of desiring that makes it happiness, not the name?
Only sort of.
While we are happy we have certain mental dispositions which are unrelated to the ones we desire when we desire happiness. Happy people are more likely to give to charity. Happy people (or at least people on certain antidepressants) are also more likely to judge harming others as wrong—whether this translates into less actual harm, I don’t know. Further, people tend to prefer that others be happy—that’s why people are always telling depressed people to smile.
Imagine that in these aliens, happiness worked in terms of its behavioral effects as it does in humans, as did anger. But aliens might still want themselves to be angry even as they want others to be happy.
Yes, but also smiling makes people happier. So it is pretty good advice for depressed people.
By this you mean that when these aliens get what they want, instead of feeling content and magnanimous, they feel discontent and destructive? Don’t you see how that could be an evolutionary handicap?
I’m not sure anger necessarily leads to discontent. If you want to get mad as hell and break things, you might feel better after doing so if you’ve been stifling a lot of discontent up to then. I don’t really pretend to know what’s going on in the head of a rioter but this seems possible.
I don’t mean that actions anger predisposes you toward leave you discontented, I mean that part of the physiological emotion of anger is discontentment.
Yeah, I guess it could be a handicap. But then human brains have so many bizarre flaws and spandrels that I think we could get away with swapping a few of ours for this one.