Posts: 9176
Threads: 76
Joined: November 21, 2013
Reputation:
40
RE: Yet another reality question!
June 8, 2016 at 8:35 am
Virtual reality. Not sure what the appeal is in being strapped to a machine, just because I feel happy when I'm in it. The VR world will bring me happiness, because I can do everything I want.
Posts: 1633
Threads: 33
Joined: March 14, 2016
Reputation:
23
RE: Yet another reality question!
June 8, 2016 at 10:11 am
(June 8, 2016 at 5:18 am)Homeless Nutter Wrote: I'll make it shorter.
Would you rather:
1) be on LSD for the rest of your life, or
2) be on heroin for the rest of your life?
However you put it - option 1 is way more attractive, because it makes you a god, whereas option 2 makes you - essentially - a vegetable.
The problem with "maximum happiness" - or indeed any level of sustained happiness - is that one you reach it you quickly become desensitized to it. That's why heroin junkies spend most of their short lives desperately chasing the feeling of that first hit.
This is theoretical, as I wrote it, you wouldn't get desensitized.
Posts: 1633
Threads: 33
Joined: March 14, 2016
Reputation:
23
RE: Yet another reality question!
June 8, 2016 at 10:14 am
(June 8, 2016 at 5:07 am)ApeNotKillApe Wrote: (June 8, 2016 at 4:54 am)RozKek Wrote: @All Nono, I stated in option 2 you'll be happier than you can ever be i.e you can't be as happy in option 1
Now who's making loopholes? So in the VR I can do whatever I want except some specific thing that operates within the rules you set but just so happens to break your question?
Yes, because otherwise my question would be meaningless. My game my rules.
Posts: 748
Threads: 4
Joined: May 6, 2016
Reputation:
35
RE: Yet another reality question!
June 8, 2016 at 10:15 am
(This post was last modified: June 8, 2016 at 10:16 am by Gemini.)
"Happiness" is a vague word. The kind of viscerally pleasurable sensations the machine provides, however intense they are, are less valuable to me than the kind of intellectually and emotionally stimulating experiences I could have in VR. To me, the VR option seems like a much more valuable kind of happiness.
A Gemma is forever.
Posts: 12743
Threads: 92
Joined: January 3, 2016
Reputation:
85
RE: Yet another reality question!
June 8, 2016 at 10:15 am
(June 8, 2016 at 10:14 am)RozKek Wrote: (June 8, 2016 at 5:07 am)ApeNotKillApe Wrote: Now who's making loopholes? So in the VR I can do whatever I want except some specific thing that operates within the rules you set but just so happens to break your question?
Yes, because otherwise my question would be meaningless. My game my rules.
![[Image: saM5o.gif]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i.imgur.com%2FsaM5o.gif)
Posts: 1633
Threads: 33
Joined: March 14, 2016
Reputation:
23
RE: Yet another reality question!
June 8, 2016 at 10:17 am
(June 8, 2016 at 5:48 am)Yeauxleaux Wrote: Does anyone else hear "virtual reality" and just think of making hot people materialise out of nowhere and fucking all day? That's me. That's literally all I'd do.
It wouldn't be a pleasent view for the robot outside the vr taking care of your body.
Posts: 2292
Threads: 16
Joined: September 28, 2015
Reputation:
24
RE: Yet another reality question!
June 8, 2016 at 10:24 am
(This post was last modified: June 8, 2016 at 10:28 am by ApeNotKillApe.)
(June 8, 2016 at 10:14 am)RozKek Wrote: (June 8, 2016 at 5:07 am)ApeNotKillApe Wrote: Now who's making loopholes? So in the VR I can do whatever I want except some specific thing that operates within the rules you set but just so happens to break your question?
Yes, because otherwise my question would be meaningless. My game my rules.
Exactly.
I am John Cena's hip-hop album.
Posts: 1633
Threads: 33
Joined: March 14, 2016
Reputation:
23
RE: Yet another reality question!
June 8, 2016 at 10:31 am
(This post was last modified: June 8, 2016 at 10:32 am by RozKek.)
(June 8, 2016 at 5:13 am)robvalue Wrote: (June 8, 2016 at 4:56 am)RozKek Wrote: But does it really matter if you're happier in option 2?
(I'm playing devil's advocate)
I do see the apparent irrationality in my answer, and it's interesting to me. It might be to do with me being unable to properly conceptualize the idea of being constantly happy without context. Also, I value the anticipation and variety very highly.
And as has been noted, this option does include the other option. I can decide to "switch over" at any time just by removing context and cranking up the happiness to max all the time.
The answer does still seem irrational even after my explanation. I would however give up this life (ignoring the morality in that decision) for a life of constant happiness where I don't get to do anything. But I had two choices, I'd go with the one where I can control my actions and happiness.
Personally I'd still pick option 1, and I don't think it's because of us being irrational. Homeless Nutter and Alex K had good answers. Thing is I am deciding now in this moment, where I very much value my choices, power, contribution, action and such. So in this moment, I very much prefer having those and be a human rather than be happier, but be a valueless vegetable. I'd even rather have no life rather than being a happy "vegetable". I'd even rather have a worse life than be that happy vegetable because I'd at least have value if I had a normal life, I'd be able to contribute to life and my actions would have an impact on others and have a value to life which can change the world for the better. So in a way me prefering option 1 also has to do with selflessness, but that's not the only reason.
Posts: 1633
Threads: 33
Joined: March 14, 2016
Reputation:
23
RE: Yet another reality question!
June 8, 2016 at 10:40 am
(June 8, 2016 at 10:15 am)Gemini Wrote: "Happiness" is a vague word. The kind of viscerally pleasurable sensations the machine provides, however intense they are, are less valuable to me than the kind of intellectually and emotionally stimulating experiences I could have in VR. To me, the VR option seems like a much more valuable kind of happiness.
I completely agree.
Posts: 3931
Threads: 47
Joined: January 5, 2015
Reputation:
37
RE: Yet another reality question!
June 8, 2016 at 11:42 am
(June 8, 2016 at 7:34 am)ignoramus Wrote: Who here would like to be stuck in a groundhog day and live forever in that 24 hr period?
You'd be a god by the end of the day and get laid, but in the morning, you're a no-one again...
It would be fun for about a week, trying outrageous things knowing nobody will remember it in the morning. After a while though, yeah, I'd want out
"Adulthood is like looking both ways before you cross the road, and then getting hit by an airplane" - sarcasm_only
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
|
