X-Message-Number: 2733
From: 
Date: Sun, 08 May 94 23:19:02 EDT
Subject: CRYONICS more want/ought

Concerning identity, survival, and life strategy: I have said the key
question is not what we want, but what we OUGHT to want, and how to discover
this. Thomas Donaldson says he doesn't understand what I mean by this, which
certainly shows that I haven't been clear enough. I'm a little surprised,
because Thomas has not only read my recent few, brief, hurried and
semicoherent postings on CryoNet, but has also read my many pieces over the
years in THE IMMORTALIST--although he has not had an opportunity to read  my
book manuscript in progress. Well, let's see what I can do in another brief
space here.

On one level, it is deceptively simple to say that we "ought" to want
whatever will result in our greatest long-term satisfaction, whatever will
maximize the individual's pleasure/pain ratio over future time. We need to
honor, not our present apparent wants necessarily, but what our FUTURE wants
are likely to be, as best we can calculate. This helps, but raises many
difficult questions, both biological and physical.

Part of what I mean Thomas does recognize when he mentions inconsistent
beliefs, and the need to think carefully about them. But he apparently
overlooks the most basic inconsistency, namely, that two wants may not only
require conflicting means, but that two or more wants may BASICALLY
contradict each other.  

Or even if two wants do not contradict each other, they might run on separate
tracks, and in some circumstances it may be necessary to make a choice. We
need explicit, rigorous criteria for making such choices, not just hunches
about what is plausible.

On one level, a prime example  of contradiction might be the urge for
self-preservation vs. the urge for self-sacrifice, both of which have
evolutionary origins.  On another level, there is "self-interest" vs.
"altruism."  One cannot make a decision just by introspection, asking
yourself what you "really" want or what you want most--although this can help
as a start. 

When the first "self circuit" appeared (the first feeling being), it was
presumably at a level lower than human--perhaps much lower. The
pleasures/pains, or satisfactions/dissatisfactions that it felt were
presumably related to survival, and concerned such simple things as feeding,
sex, comfortable surroundings, avoidance of danger, etc. (These would include
the Four Fs: Feed, Fornicate, Flee, Fight.)
There was certainly a potential for conflict. (In one of Heinlein's books,
the protagonist newly-wed couple,  hungry after a hard day's work, always had
to ask each other: "EF or FF?")  Certainly  the primitive choice between Flee
and Fight was sometimes made wrongly (and still is). 

Evolution proceeded. There may have been some kind of primitive urge to act,
for the organism to use its faculties and abilities and express itself, so to
speak, i.e. some proto-drive to accomplish something, to flex its muscles and
neurons. But mainly the urge or willingness to work--hard and long--and to
pursue curiosities relentlessly, arose out of the rewards reaped when the
organism accepted short-term discomfort in return for longer term gain.   

Eventually, "psychic" or mental satisfactions came usually greatly to
outweigh the simpler drives.  Most people have things they would rather do
(usually) than eat or copulate. An artist or scientist may work into the wee
hours and disregard physical comfort.  A  fanatic may sacrifice his own life
(yours first, of course) just to satisfy some insane ideal or imagined
deputation. Mere habits or traditions can EASILY take precedence over basic
necessities or simple reason. Finally we came to Lorenz' "parliament of
instincts," a disorderly, brawling, and often thoroughly confused place of
deals and compromises.

Although the first order of business is just to make reasonable guesses about
fundamental priorities, and then try to maximize the future satisfactions of
the persons we hope to become, the ultimate aim is to develop RIGOROUS
criteria of "right" and "wrong" by identifying and studying the self circuit.
We need to know the biological (physical) nature of feelings of good and bad,
 how many kinds there are,  whether conflicts exist or can exist, whether new
ones can develop, how the hierarchies relate, etc. 

It is possible that there are no answers we will like. But I am fairly sure
that, even if it turns out we are fundamentally conflicted, we can change
that...maybe even while remaining "ourselves" in some acceptable sense.

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