a_parent comments on Morality as Parfitian-filtered Decision Theory? - Less Wrong

24 Post author: SilasBarta 30 August 2010 09:37PM

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Comment author: simplicio 01 September 2010 05:05:42AM 1 point [-]

Then let me just say, welcome!

As a parent I can report that most days my day-wise maximum moment-to-moment happiness is due to some interaction with my child.

I'm inclined to believe you, but note that what you said doesn't quite contradict the hypothesis, which is that if you were not a parent, your day-wise maximum (from any source) would probably be higher.

Also, beware of attributing more power to introspection than it deserves, especially when the waters are already muddied by the normativity of parents' love for their children. You say your happiest moments are with your child, but a graph of dopamine vs. time might (uninspiringly) show bigger spikes whenever you ate sugar. Or it might not. My point is that I'm not sure how much we should trust our own reflections on our happiness.

Comment author: a_parent 01 September 2010 02:13:44PM 4 points [-]

note that what you said doesn't quite contradict the hypothesis

Fair point. So let me just state that as far as I can tell, the average of my DWMM2M happiness is higher than it was before my child was born, and I expect that in a counterfactual world where my spouse and I didn't want a child and consequently didn't have one, my DWMM2M happiness would not be as great as in this one. It's just that knowing what I know (including what I've learned from this site) and having been programmed by evolution to love a stupendous badass (and that stupendous badass having been equally programmed to love me back), I find that watching that s.b. unfold into a human before my eyes causes me happiness of a regularity and intensity that I personally have never experienced before.