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denisbider comments on You cannot be mistaken about (not) wanting to wirehead - Less Wrong
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But such a preference is neurotic. Wire-heading isn't a discrete, easily distinguishable category. Any number of improvements to your mind are possible. If we start at the very lowest end, chances are that, most of the improvements, you would welcome. Once you have been given those improvements, you would find the next level of improvement desirable. Eventually, you are at the level just below a total wire-head, and you can clearly see that wire-heading is the way to be.
Yet, if you're given the choice upfront, you will refuse to be a wire-head. This is essentially due to pre-conceived (probably wrong) notions of what matters and what wire-heading is. And the FAI would be correct in fixing you, just like it would be correct in fixing a depressed patient.
The main problem I have with wireheading is the notion of me simply being and not doing anything else. If I could just alter my mind to be maximally or close to maximally happy nearly all the time, but still letting me do all kinds of different things and still be motivated to do various things, I'd have a much smaller problem.
Good news for you then: Humans are not understimulated rats. There was an experiment where some psychologists gave some subjects electrodes and a device which stimulated their "reward center" (this was back when it was believed that dopamine was the happiness chemical and desire-wireheading was the same as happiness-wireheading) whenever they pushed a button. They also recorded every time the button was pushed. The subjects carried the electrodes for a while (I believe it was a week) and then returned them. All the subjects went about their lives, doing normal things with about their normal amount of motivation. All of them used the button at least a few times and reported that they liked it. But only one guy used it more than ten times per day, and he was intentionally (but unsuccessfully) using it for classical conditioning.
A reference would be nice - please. :)
This is the best I find right now and I need to go to bed. They retell the same anecdote that I referred to at the end of that piece.
Here is the relevant part:
Though in the version I read several years ago the events were in a different order. And they were actually talking about this as a means to reach the happy equilibrium that Kaj is talking about, so they talked much more about the other subjects in the experiment. I had forgotten that Heath interfered with the gay guy after, because that was kind of downplayed.
I imagine the ultimate wireheading would involve complete happiness and interfacing with the FAI's consciousness, experiencing much more than is possible by a solitary mind.