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Swimmer963 comments on The Least Convenient Possible World - Less Wrong
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The problem with the 'god shaped hole' situation (and questions of happiness in general) is that if something doesn't make you happy NOW, it becomes very difficult to believe that it will make you happy LATER.
For example, say some Soma-drug was invented that, once taken, would make you blissfully happy for the rest of your life. Would you take it? Our immediate reaction is to say 'no', probably because we don't like the idea of 'fake', chemically-induced happiness. In other words, because the idea doesn't make us happy now, we don't really believe it will make us happy later.
Valuing truth seems like just another way of saying truth makes you happy. Because filling the god shaped hole means not valuing truth, the idea doesn't make you happy right now, so you don't really believe it will make you happy later.
I try my best to value other peoples' happiness equal to my own. If taking a happiness-inducing pill was likely to make me a kinder, more generous, more productive person, I would choose to take it (with some misgivings related to it seeming like 'cheating' and 'not good for character-building') but if it were to make me less kind/generous/productive, I would have much stronger misgivings.