FrankAdamek comments on Pain - Less Wrong

32 Post author: Alicorn 02 August 2009 07:12PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (195)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: FrankAdamek 03 August 2009 06:53:43AM 2 points [-]

I for one welcome our old genetic overlords. Admittedly I consider my life to contain more pleasure than pain, I might think differently if it were otherwise.

Where would you be getting purpose if not for them? Without them we could share the hopes and fears of something truly admirable: rocks.

(Actually I want the old genetic overlords to get off our backs, but I'm thankful to them for giving me that desire.)

Comment deleted 03 August 2009 06:37:13PM *  [-]
Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 03 August 2009 08:38:06PM 4 points [-]

Nobody here disagrees with the factual history in your comment - that our brain circuitry is indeed the product of evolution. The moral interpretation you're putting on top of it is questionable, and poorly supported in your comment... and, of course, a product of evolved brain circuitry. :)

You treat the history as news expected to shock us, with only one sufficiently hardheaded interpretation; actually it's news that is very old to us, and there are many other ways to react to it besides that. So, roughly, failed attempt to impress with hardheaded materialism?

Comment author: FrankAdamek 03 August 2009 08:29:51PM *  2 points [-]

Yes I very much agree pain can be excessive sometimes. I'd personally prefer that we get rid of it altogether and someday replace it with some system that's more accurate and less affectively negative. Pain is quite primitive. And perhaps our increasing wield of technology is the way in which we take more control?

I didn't actually downvote you myself, I had thought it was due to what I took as an implied suggestion that we get rid of our pleasures, or that they are a curse. I replied what I did because I find the argument, quite unconvincing, and had seen elsewhere people putting it forward. But perhaps you aren't so much, and I was sadly biased from my prior experience.

I suppose you could say I'd like to overthrow all the overloads (or just the one as I see it), take the reins of my own affective destiny and all that, and you might also say that no such overlord is my proper pal. What I would say is that I'm extremely grateful to them for my enjoyment of sex and milkshakes, for:

Every interest we think we have, every sensation we believe we enjoy

I'd also say that I do have those interests and honestly do enjoy the sensations, regardless of the blind god that gave them to me, or why.

Comment author: Alicorn 03 August 2009 06:38:57PM 0 points [-]

written poorly

That's the one.