X-Message-Number: 2766
From: 
Date: Thu, 19 May 94 13:02:10 EDT
Subject: CRYONICS thursday philosophy

Judging by Thomas Donaldson's latest comments (May 18) I still haven't made
myself clear on the basics of values. Yesterday I posted a draft of a short
article, but let me try again now very briefly --to the extent possible--to
reiterate the basics.

The BASIC want of any organism is just to gain feel-good and avoid feel-bad
(maximize pleasure or satisfaction and minimize pain or dissatisfaction).  

Pleasure/pain are defined by specific events or states in the self-circuit
(that part or aspect of the brain or its functions which permits feeling, the
subjective condition). When something at a less basic level pleases
us--perhaps the home team winning a ball game--it is because somehow that
information is able to change the state of the self circuit in a favorable
way, depending on previous evolution or training. 

What we need to ascertain by physiological research is, first, the physical
parameters or constitution of the self circuit, then the particular events or
states that constitute feelings of good/bad, satisfaction/dissatisfaction.
This will finally tell us how many distinct states there are--and can
be--whether they are discrete or continuous, and to what extent they are in
potential conflict or mutually exclusive. 

We may also get clues to whether the design or program of the self circuit
can be modified--whether, if we don't like what we are, we can change it with
acceptable consequences.

Then we can study the ways in which higher-level putative wants relate to the
basics. Does a certain habit or intellectual outlook really tend to maximize
feel-good, or is it counter-productive and just a mistake? (Even if it does
tend to mazimize immediate feel-good, we still need to calculate whether it
tends to maximize future feel-good over time.)

As far as I can see, all of the above (at Level One, leaving out of account
certain open questions in physics and philosophy) is not open to question;
these are merely truisms--although it may take a lot of thought to get there,
as it did with me. The main potential usefulness of these ideas is twofold:
to suggest lines of biological research, and to clarify  philosophical
thinking. 

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