X-Message-Number: 10155 Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 18:49:57 -0400 From: Brook Norton <> Subject: What you OUGHT to do Tom Donaldson writes: >> Why would it be wrong to take a (hypothetical) drug which makes you permanently happy at the cost of removing your ability to think? >> He also writes: >> So should we want knowledge or happiness? >> Charles Platt writes: >> Also I know people who have made sacrifices to help other people. The sacrifices did not make them happy, but they felt compelled to act this way for ethical reasons. To take an extreme example: a mother may choose to sacrifice her life for her child. This certainly won't make her happy, but if it is her choice, we should respect it. >> Paul Wakfer writes: >> It should also be pointed out that the morality (badness or goodness) of any decision can truly be ascertained only in the context of *omniscience* (of the future as well as the present). That is why it is both truly impossible and, therefore, an enormous presumption to state that someone else has made the wrong decision and "ought" to want something different than what s/he does want. >> My response: I'll restate that the underlying assertion is (borrowing some from Ettinger) ** The only rational approach for anyone is to try to maximize personal happiness over future time, appropriately weighted.** At the most basic level, I believe the brain is hardwired to always choose to increase happiness. At the most basic level, you can't act to try to become unhappy. Its impossible. A mother may sacrifice her life to save her children from a fatal accident, but only because she believes that to live and see her children killed would cause her to be more unhappy than giving her own life. You can hit your finger with a hammer to try to prove this concept wrong, but you would only do it because you predict that you would enjoy the feeling of proving a point more than you would dislike the feeling of the hammer. At a higher level, one thinks about what goal one is trying to achieve when making decisions. Is my goal to make money? win a basketball game? find food? stop pain? Ultimately, according to the above happiness criterion, your goal OUGHT to be to maximize happiness. If your goal is to make money because you believe it will make you happiest, then your thinking is objectively correct, and therefore defined as "right" in this philosophy. = If your goal is to make money as an end in itself, then your thinking is objectively incorrect or "wrong". As Paul points out, only an omniscience being could see the future and know which decision will lead to the greatest happiness. Therefore, only an omniscience being could live a perfect life, making all the "right" choices. Even though we are not omniscient, we can and "ought" to strive to maximize our happiness using whatever limited mental and physical resources we have. Only an omniscient being could judge another's actions as "right" or "wrong" with certainty. Even though we are not omniscient, we can judge whether we think others have made the "right" or "wrong" choice, that is, whether we believe someone's choice is the same one an omniscient being would make. Our opinion of others may be correct or not, but at least it is based on an objective criteria and a rational framework of reasoning. It is this rational framework of reasoning that one "ought" to operate in. Should we choose a drug induced blissful stupor if it meant we lost the ability to think? Well, if we somehow knew the effect would last forever and would make us forever happier than a "reality based" existence, then logically, yes... take the drug as soon as you can. This offends many because our experience has always shown that drug addiction makes you more unhappy in the long run, but given a "super drug" with a guarantee of eternal happiness.... go for it. Should we ever consider suicide? If there is clear evidence that continued life will lead to less happiness than death, then suicide is the logical, "right" choice. How does all this matter to cryonics? Oh..... not too much, directly. It applies to life in general. It gives a solid, logical foundation upon which to base your actions and judge others. Personally, I believe that strict pursuit of happiness leads one to pursue the truth because the truth gives you power to manipulate your environment in your favor which leads to greater happiness. A reliance on truth leads to reliance on the scientific method where applicable. The pursuit of truth has led me personally to a libertarian approach to dealing with others because the resulting harmony increases my happiness. The pursuit of truth has led me to believe that cryonics has a good chance of working and may therefore greatly increase my happiness. I'd now like to indulge in a paragraph of personal reflection because it may hit a sympathetic chord with others on this list. I have long been a believer that the pursuit of truth is of extreme personal importance. In the pursuit of truth, I am very leary of coming to believe something because I want it to be true, instead of because the evidence indicates that it is true. When I come to a conclusion that makes my life easier, I often question myself as to whether the conclusion is true or whether I have rationalized it to make my life easier. Case in point.... About 15 yrs ago I came to the conclusion that I would die, as generations before had, and that there was no afterlife. This was a VERY bitter pill to swallow (especially since medical immortality is just around the corner), but I did, and it gives me tremendous satisfaction to know that since the evidence pointed to that conclusion, I believed it even though it meant I would only be around a few more decades. I knew about cryonics but discounted it on some technical issues. Then about 8 years ago, I ended up with cryonics info that corrected my thinking about those technical issues and the more I learned, the more cryonics looked like it would work. So I then believed I had a good chance at a VERY long life. That realization was the greatest intellectual high I ever experienced and it took 2 or 3 years for the high to wear off. Now I accept cryonics as part of life, like eating and going to work. Brook Norton Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=10155