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TheOtherDave comments on Welcome to Heaven - Less Wrong
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As a wirehead advocate, I want to present my response to this as bluntly as possible, since I think my position is more generally what underlies the wirehead position, and I never see this addressed.
I simply don't believe that you really value understanding and exploration. I think that your brain (mine too) simply says to you 'yay, understanding and exploration!'. What's more, the only way you even know this much, is from how you feel about exploration - on the inside - when you are considering it or engaging in it. That is, how much 'pleasure' or wirehead-subjective-experience-nice-feelings-equivalent you get from it. You say to your brain: 'so, what do you think about making scientific discoveries?' and it says right back to you: 'making discoveries? Yay!'
Since literally every single thing we value just boils down to 'my brain says yay about this' anyway, why don't we just hack the brain equivalent to say 'yay!' as much as possible?
If I were about to fall off a cliff, I would prefer that you satisfy your brain's desire to pull me back by actually pulling me back, not by hacking your brain to believe you had pulled me back while I in fact plunge to my death. And if my body needs nutrients, I would rather satisfy my hunger by actually consuming nutrients, not by hacking my brain to believe I had consumed nutrients while my cells starve and die.
I suspect most people share those preferences.
That pretty much summarizes my objection to wireheading in the real world.
That said, if we posit a hypothetical world where my wireheading doesn't have any opportunity costs (that is, everything worth doing is going to be done as well as I can do it or better, whether I do it or not), I'm OK with wireheading.
To be more precise, I share the sentiment that others have expressed that my brain says "Boo!" to wireheading even in that world. But in that world, my brain also says "Boo!" to not wireheading for most the same reasons, so that doesn't weigh into my decision-making much, and is outweighed by my brain's "Yay!" to enjoyable experiences.
Said more simply: if nothing I do can matter, then I might as well wirehead.