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A Non-trivial Pursuit of Happiness – Paradise Engineering with David Pearce :-)

It is non-trivial for a couple of reasons:
a) the pursuit of this vision of happiness is not trivial – it is likely to be a very challenging endeavor (though totally worthy of the effort)
b) the aim is to achieve non-trivial modes of happiness, kinds of information-sensitive gradients of bliss (as opposed to being stuck in a narrow-local maximum of ecstatic stupor)

Imagine that the best experience possible – and imagine that it would be lower than tomorrows floor.

It may be that our decedents will have the chance to re-engineer themselves to be able to experience well-being far beyond what we can experience and imagine today.

Full blown paradise engineering is likely not something that people alive now should expect, though if we are ethically serious, we should be investigating ways to redesign our default mode of being to flourish in states of bliss.

Transcript

Think of the most wonderful experience of your life – now imagine if life could be as good as that – or rather imagine if life could be better than that all the time. Just imagine if your best experience ever could be lower than tomorrow’s hedonic flaw. Other things being equal, wouldn’t it be better if we live in paradise?
Now, for much of history this kind of talk would be simply could be dismissed as utopian dreaming; that manipulating the environment in innumerable different ways has been tried and to be honest we’re not significantly happier now than ancestors on the African savanna – certainly not if suicide, depression marital breakup statistics etc. are taken seriously.
However thanks to biotechnology now it will be possible re-engineer ourselves; to edit our own source code; to enjoy life animated by gradients of bliss – other things being equal,
doesn’t it make sense to make that our default option?

What could go wrong? Well lots of things could go wrong – but that’s true of any experiment – and that’s what having kids involves today. When two people decide to bring children into
the world chances are the moment they are going to be bringing in an awful of suffering into the world too.
Whereas in future when one creates new life one will be potentially creating gradients of lifelong well-being. And if we’re ethically serious, that’s the approach I think we ought to be taking.

A lost people will probably think “well that’s all well and good maybe our children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren will enjoy this kind of fabulous life.”
“What about me now?” – because we’re human, one can listen to these wonderful tales some futurists relate of how good life could be in future – a future of super-intelligence, super-longevity and super-happiness – all these wonderful things – what about now? One still has bills to pay, taxes, relationship problems, just the messy nitty-gritty reality of life – unfortunately I don’t have a panacea now or rather the kinds of interventions one can suggest: good diets, exercise, sleep discipline… unfortunately are on not as exciting as this tantalizing prospect that our children and grandchildren will enjoy.

But after that somber note perhaps its worth suggesting that with to designer drugs and with future autosomal genetic therapy it will be possible for adults my age and older to enjoy the best time of their lives too – perhaps not full blown paradise engineering; the richness that our descendants may enjoy – but there is no reason to be skeptical that the later in years of our life won’t be incomparably richer than anything that’s gone before.

The Hedonistic Imperative

The Hedonistic Imperative outlines how genetic engineering and nanotechnology will abolish suffering in all sentient life.

The abolitionist project is hugely ambitious but technically feasible. It is also instrumentally rational and morally urgent. The metabolic pathways of pain and malaise evolved because they served the fitness of our genes in the ancestral environment. They will be replaced by a different sort of neural architecture – a motivational system based on heritable gradients of bliss. States of sublime well-being are destined to become the genetically pre-programmed norm of mental health. It is predicted that the world’s last unpleasant experience will be a precisely dateable event.

Two hundred years ago, powerful synthetic pain-killers and surgical anesthetics were unknown. The notion that physical pain could be banished from most people’s lives would have seemed absurd. Today most of us in the technically advanced nations take its routine absence for granted. The prospect that what we describe as psychological pain, too, could ever be banished is equally counter-intuitive. The feasibility of its abolition turns its deliberate retention into an issue of social policy and ethical choice.

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