Yes. Just as a pinprick has something tenuously in common with agony, posthuman well-being will have something even more tenuously in common with human peak experiences. But mastery of the pleasure-pain axis promises a hedonic revolution; some kind of phase change in hedonic tone beyond human comprehension. — David Pearce

I like what you said earlier:

Members of a civilisation with a hedonic range of, say, +20 to +30 have no real insight into the nature of life in a supercivilisation with a range that extends from a hedonic low of, say, +90 to an ultra-sublime +100. With pleasure as with pain, "more is different" – qualitatively different. — David Pearce

Perhaps I'm way off the mark in the way I interpret it but for what it's worth I'll give you an idea of how I made sense of what you said. To begin with, you've been regularly employing numbers in your posts on transhumanism. My guess is you have some kind of a numerical hedonic scale which you're using to make rough or perhaps even precise measurements of hedonic parameters (pleasure & suffering). What struck me as deeply insightful is, I quote, "'more is different' - qualitatively different". The word "more" implies the hedonic scale I was talking about earlier and one can imagine a slider on it that marks off differences in what I suppose is the intensity of pleasure or pain that's numerically i.e. quantitatively expressed.

I don't know if it matters to transhumanism or not but my intuition informs me that if there's a large enough quantitative distance between two hedonic states, the difference might be perceived as a qualitative one. In other words, a hedonic value of +20 may still be comprehensible in terms of pleasure or pain but one that's +100 may be experienced not as either pleasure or pain but as something about which we can only speculate at the moment.

An analogy might help. I've been to gyms and done some weight training. I recall trying to lift some weights and what I did was slowly increase the weight I was lifting which in effect is quantitatively increasing the stress on the muscles of my arms. In the initial stages, all I could feel was the strain on my muscles gradually rising but at a certain point, the strain transformed into pain. This, to me, seems like quantitative differences, if big enough, might be perceived as qualitative differences. Sorry if my short anecdote fails to do its job of elucidating my point but it's the best I could do.

The implication for transhumanism is this: A hedonic value of +90 or +100 may not be experienced as pleasure at all; at the very least, what we suppose is pleasure at hedonic levels +90 or +100 may be so radically different from what is pleasure at hedonic levels +20 or +30 that we would be forced to make a distinction between them - one is pleasure in its present recognizable form and the other is...???...anyone's guess.

I have a feeling that this isn't either a fatal flaw or even a minor irritation for transhumanism but I'd like your opinion nonetheless.

G'day.

Does the transhumanist vision ultimately lead to something of a morgue where bodies are stored side-by-side and atop on another — Outlander

A morgue doesn't quite evoke the grandeur of a "triple S" civilisation. But I guess it's conceivable. Even today, we each spend our life encased within the confines of a transcendental skull – not to be confused with the palpable empirical skull whose contours one can feel with one's "virtual" hands (cf. https://www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.html#lifeillus). Immersive VR or some version of the transcension hypothesis is one trajectory for the future of sentience. Rather than traditional spacefaring yarns – who wants to explore what are really lifeless gas giants or sterile lumps of rock!? – maybe intelligence will turn inwards to explore inner space. The experience of inner space – and especially alien state-spaces of consciousness – can be far bigger, richer and more diverse than interplanetary or hypothetical interstellar travel pursued in ordinary waking consciousness. For what it's worth, I've personally no more desire to spend time on Mars than to live in the Sahara desert.

Anyhow, to answer your question: I don't know. For technical reasons, I think the future lies in gradients of superhuman bliss. I've no credible conception of what guises that bliss will take. It will just be better than your wildest dreams.

I've no credible conception of what guises that bliss will take. — David Pearce

I suppose that would require that you're already superhuman.

At what point do you think we might cross the threshold between human and superhuman? Could there be a distinguishing feature which would mark a difference of species? Or, would making such a distinction amount to racism?

Hi David, forgive me if you have already explained this (in which case could you direct me to where you did?), I have a question for you.

Do you believe that there are limits to the extent in which a person is ethically obligated to get involved on someone else's behalf? Do you think there comes a point in which a person is justified in saying, "not my problem"?

Cirith Ungol's songhas the lyrics:

Sometimes I take a look at the world
And sometimes I take a look at the girls
I'm just a spectator, I don't get involved
I've got too many problems of my own to solve

It seems to me that the common-sense intuition is that, while suffering is indeed bad, there are limits to how much a person is obligated to try to reduce it, and furthermore, that it is more important to not increase the amount of suffering in the world than it is to reduce it. It at least initially seem like we have some degree of freedom to be a "spectator", so that some things are just not our fault, and we have no responsibility to make things better (although it is admirable if we so choose).

What are your thoughts on this?

@David Pearce I just now stumbled across a quote from Blaise Pascal that brought to mind something you said in this thread several days ago (can't find it right now), about how if we change our minds (our brains, our neurochemistry) then every experience of anything can be a joyful or otherwise positive one.

The quote was:

All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. — Blaise Pascal

I take it that in your perfect world, just sitting quietly in a room alone would be "enough", above hedonic zero. But of course that wouldn't consign us to perpetual inaction as we just sat in a room alone doing nothing forever (like the "wire-heads" in Larry Niven's Known Space universe, who are addicted to direct electronic stimulation of their pleasure centers), because we would still have the opportunity for even more enjoyable experiences if we went out and accomplished things, learned things, taught others, helped them in other ways, etc.

Does that sound about right?

I take it that in your perfect world, just sitting quietly in a room alone would be "enough", above hedonic zero. But of course that wouldn't consign us to perpetual inaction as we just sat in a room alone doing nothing forever (like the "wire-heads" in Larry Niven's Known Space universe, who are addicted to direct electronic stimulation of their pleasure centers), because we would still have the opportunity for even more enjoyable experiences if we went out and accomplished things, learned things, taught others, helped them in other ways, etc.

Does that sound about right? — Pfhorrest

Thank you. Lots of complications to unpack here! We now know that wireheading, i.e. intracranial self-stimulation of the mesolimbic dopamine system, simulates the desire centres of the CNS rather than the opioidergic pleasure centres (cf. https://www.paradise-engineering.com/brain/). But let's here use "wireheading" in the popularly accepted sense of unvarying bliss induced by microelectrode stimulation: a perpetual hedonic +10. Short of genetic enhancement, there is no way for human wireheads to exceed the upper bounds of bliss allowed by their existing reward circuitry; but for negative utilitarians, at least, this constraint isn't a moral issue. As a NU, I reckon a entire civilisation of wireheads that had discharged all its responsibilities to eradicate suffering would be morally unimpeachable. However, I don't urge wireheading except in cases of refractory pain and depression. It's not ecologically viable because there will always be strong selection pressure against any predisposition to wirehead. The idea of wireheading appeals mostly to pain-ridden depressives.

Another scenario combines hedonic recalibration with the VR equivalent of Nozick's Experience Machines (cf. https://www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.html#experiencemachine). Immersive VR may transform life and civilisation. But once again, I don't advocate ubiquitous Experience Machines because of the nature of selection pressure in basement reality. Any predisposition not to plug into full-blown Experience Machines will be genetically adaptive.

However, there is third option that is potentially saleable, ecologically viable and also my tentative prediction for the future of sentience. Genetically-based hedonic uplift and recalibration isn't, strictly speaking, pleasure-maximizing. Recall how today's high-functioning hyperthymics are blissful, but they aren't "blissed out". A civilisation based on information-sensitive gradients of intelligent bliss is not a perfect world by strict classical utilitarian criteria. Recalibrating hedonic range and hedonic set-points in basement reality may even be "conservative", in a sense. Your values, preference architecture and relationships can remain intact even as your default hedonic tone is uplifted. Critical insight and social responsibility can be conserved. Neuroscientific progress can continue unabated too – including perhaps the knowledge of how to create a hedonic +90 to +100 supercivilisation.

Heady stuff. Alas, Darwinian life still has vicious surprises in store.

Do you believe that there are limits to the extent in which a person is ethically obligated to get involved on someone else's behalf? Do you think there comes a point in which a person is justified in saying, "not my problem"? — darthbarracuda

A good question. IMO a plea of "not my problem" is irrational and immoral. In my view, closed individualism is a false theory of personal identity: https://www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.html#individualism
Insofar as you are rational, and insofar it as lies within your power, you should help others as much as you should help your future namesakes ("you"). For sure, there are massive complications. Evolution didn't design us to be rational. Reality seems centred on me. I'm most important, followed by family, friends and allies:
https://www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.html#interpret
Intellectually, I know this is delusional nonsense. But the egocentric illusion is so adaptive that it's effectively hardwired across the animal kingdom. If one aspires to exceed one's design specifications and instead display "moral heroism", then one risks burnout.

What does helping others mean in practice? Well, "technical solutions to ethical problems" is one pithy definition of transhumanism. The biotech and IT revolutions mean that shortly we'll be able to help even the humblest forms of sentience without risk of burnout, and indeed with minimal personal inconvenience. For instance, I'd strenuously urge everyone to go vegan; humanity's depraved treatment of nonhuman animals in factory-farms and slaughterhouses defies description. Yet the most effective way to "veganise" the world will be accelerating the development and commercialisation of cultured meat and animal products. Most people are weakly benevolent; if offered, they'll choose the cruelty-free cultured option. Animal agriculture will presumably be banned after butchery becomes redundant. A similar hard-headed ethical approach is needed to tackle the problem of wild animal suffering. Devoting half one's life to feeding famished herbivores in winter would be too psychologically demanding; piecemeal interventions would also be ineffective and maybe cause more long-term suffering. By contrast, hi-tech solutions to wild animal suffering are easier to implement and potentially much more effective.

At what point do you think we might cross the threshold between human and superhuman? — Metaphysician Undercover

Biologists define a species as a group of organisms that can reproduce with one another in their natural habitat to produce fertile offspring. We can envisage a future world where most babies are base-edited "designer babies". At some stage, the notional coupling of a gene-edited, AI-augmented transhuman and an archaic human on a reservation would presumably not produce a viable child.

Bioconservatives may be sceptical such a reproductive revolution will ever come to pass. Yet I suspect some kind of reproductive revolution may be inevitable. As humans progressively conquer the aging process later this century and beyond, procreative freedom as traditionally understood will eventually be impossible – whether the carrying capacity of Earth is 15 billion or 150 billion. Babymaking will become a rare and meticulously planned event:
https://www.reproductive-revolution.com

Possibly, you have a more figurative sense of "superhuman" in mind. My definition of the transition from human to transhuman is conventional but not arbitrary. In The Hedonistic Imperative (1995) I predicted, tentatively, that the world's last experience below hedonic zero in our forward light-cone would be a precisely datable event a few centuries from now. The Darwinian era will have ended. A world without psychological and physical pain isn't the same as a mature posthuman civilisation of superintelligence, superlongevity and superhappiness. But the end of suffering will still be a momentous watershed in the evolutionary development of life. I'd argue it's the most ethically important.

Biologists define a species as a group of organisms that can reproduce with one another in their natural habitat and produce fertile offspring. We can envisage a future world where most babies are base-edited "designer babies". At some stage, the notional coupling of a gene-edited, AI-augmented transhuman and an archaic human on a reservation would presumably not produce a viable child. — David Pearce

Wouldn't there be a vast portion of the human population which for one reason or another would not engage in this designer baby process? I would think that they might even revolt against it. In any case, I can see a divide where each, the designer and the natural would look at each other as different. And in these cases we don't usually look at the other as better.

As humans progressively conquer the aging process later this century and beyond, procreative freedom as traditionally understood will eventually be impossible – whether the carrying capacity of Earth is 15 billion or 150 billion. — David Pearce

Judging by the way that human beings have given themselves control over the Covid19 virus I don't have much faith in their capacity to conquer any natural processes which produce death. I tend to think that making a living thing resistant to a specific fatal process only leaves it more vulnerable to another fatal process. Life is a very delicate balance, and "the aging process" is an illusion because there is no one simple process which constitutes "aging". The fountain of youth is a myth.

Possibly you have a more figurative sense of "superhuman" in mind. My definition of the transition from human to transhuman life is conventional but not arbitrary. In The Hedonistic Imperative (1995) I predicted, tentatively, that the world's last experience below hedonic zero in our forward light-cone would be a precisely datable event a few centuries from now. The Darwinian era will have ended. A world without mental and physical pain isn't the same as a mature posthuman civilisation of superintelligence, superlongevity and superhappiness. But the end of suffering will still be a momentous watershed in the evolutionary development of life. I'd argue it's the most ethically important. — David Pearce

I noticed you are also concerned about nuclear war. Aren't you a little worried that the movement toward designer babies could actually trigger a nuclear war as a revolution against this sort of human manipulation? Also, there are countless other things which could foil this process, like biological warfare. I would think that your desired human transformation would require the entirety of the human population working together towards that one goal. And, as I indicated above, I believe that is extremely unlikely because many will reject this as unnatural, or as in opposition to God. Do you see how many people in the world reject something so simple as a Covid19 vaccination? Both atheist and theist moralists have reason to reject your proposal. Therefore I think you proposal would only create a division between those in favour, and those against, and if those in favour persisted as if they were starting to proceed into the project without unanimous consent, they might be exterminated as a threat.

Therefore I think you proposal would only create a division between those in favour, and those against, and if those in favour persisted as if they were starting to proceed into the project without unanimous consent, they might be exterminated as a threat. — Metaphysician Undercover

@David Pearce, also on this sentiment, I was going to suggest if such a- in my view outlandish- reality would ever come to real and actual practice or fruition.. people would want to see the results for themselves first. Not just the first transhumans gleefully or perhaps nonchalantly being happy or blissful or any of the aforementioned in your proposal right away or for a few months or even a few years... but how they truly fare in life and through multiple generations. Perhaps a controlled experiment would be in order. An entire civilization. Somewhere far, far away where they cannot reach the outside non-transhuman world and the outside world cannot reach them. But where we can all monitor them vigorously, both advocate and opponent. Or at least a non-biased person who can offer the moral equivalent (example, a group of volunteers and their kids). Otherwise.. I tend to believe Metaphysician has a quite compelling if not forceful point to be confronted.

I was going to suggest if such a- in my view outlandish- reality would ever come to real and actual practice or fruition.. people would want to see the results for themselves first. — Outlander

Why "outlandish"? For sure, untested genetic experiments conceived in the heat of sexual passion are "normal" today. But there may come a time when creating life via a blind genetic crapshoot will seem akin to child abuse. Recall that Darwinian life is "designed" to suffer. I reckon responsible future parents will want happy children blessed with good code. All sentient beings deserve the maximum genetic opportunity to flourish.

Hello David,

I had a topic I made before. Did I get it right in that topic?

See:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/8735/david-pearce-on-hedonism

Thank you. You are very kind. Some people may be a bit disconcerted that a negative utilitarian should talk so much about happiness, pleasure and even hedonism. But IMO, engineering a world with an architecture of mind based on information-sensitive gradients of well-being will prove to be the most realistic way to end suffering.

Wouldn't there be a vast portion of the human population which for one reason or another would not engage in this designer baby process? I would think that they might even revolt against it. — Metaphysician Undercover

Suppose that a minority of parents do indeed decide they want "designer babies" rather than haphazardly-created babies. The explosive popularity of personal genomics services like 23andMe shows many people are proactive regarding their genetic make-up and genetic family history – and by their partner's genetic code too. Suppose that the genetic basis of pain thresholds, hedonic range, hedonic set-points, antiaging alleles and, yes, alleles and allelic combinations associated with high intelligence becomes better understood. Naturally, most prospective parents want the best for their kids. To be sure, designing life is a bioethical minefield. But what kind of "revolt" from bionconservatives do you anticipate beyond simply continuing to have babies in the cruel, historical manner? No doubt the revolution will be messy. That said, I predict opposition will eventually wither.

But what kind of "revolt" from bionconservatives do you anticipate beyond simply opting to have babies in the cruel, time-honoured manner? No doubt the revolution will be messy. That said, I predict opposition will eventually wither. — David Pearce

Because the transhumans would be superhuman in some ways, they would be seen as a threat to the naturalists (or whatever you want to call them), and the God-fearers. And, as artificially produced, the naturalists would look at them as emotionless computers or robots, and feel the same threat that some people today feel about robots taking over the world and wiping out human existence. So they'd want to protect their children from this scourge of artificial beings, by doing whatever they possibly could to prevent them from being created.

Because the transhumans would be superhuman in some ways, they would be seen as a threat to the naturalists (or whatever you want to call them), and the God-fearers — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, I agree. Ferocious controversy lies ahead.
Recall the first CRISPR babies were produced not to enhance the innate well-being of the gene-edited twins, but to enhance their intelligence with HIV-protection as a cover story (cf. https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/02/21/137309/the-crispr-twins-had-their-brains-altered/). I don't know if the parents of Lulu and Nana were aware of the potential cognitive enhancement that CCR5 deletion confers in "animal models". Yet if they knew, they'd most likely approve. Chinese parents tend to be particularly ambitious for their kids. Here's one of my worries. Other things being equal, intelligence-amplification is admirable; but intelligence is a contested concept (cf. https://www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.html#iqintelligence). And the kind of intelligence that prospective parents are most likely to want amplified is the mind-blind, "autistic" component of general intelligence captured by "IQ" tests / SAT scores (etc), not social cognition, higher-order intentionality and collaborative problem-solving prowess (cf. https://psychology-tools.com/test/autism-spectrum-quotient). Just consider: would you be more excited by the prospect of becoming the biological parent of a John von Neumann or a Nelson Mandela? Yes, a hypothetical "high IQ" civilisation could potentially be awesome. Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines would flourish. Yet there are poorly understood neurological trade-offs between a hyper-systematizing, hyper-masculine, "high-IQ"/AQ cognitive style and an empathetic cognitive style (cf. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-63293-005). If designer babies were left entirely to the discretion of prospective parents, then a "high-IQ" civilisation would also be a high-AQ civilisation. The chequered history of so-called "high IQ" societies (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-IQ_society) doesn't bode well. Note that I'm not making a value-judgement about what AQ is desirable for the individual or for civilisation as a whole, nor saying that high-AQ folk are incapable of empathy. But our current restrictive conception of intelligence is a recipe for the tribalism that intelligent moral agents should aim to transcend. Full-spectrum superintelligences will have a superhuman capacity for perspective-taking – including the perspectives of the unremediated / unenhanced.

More generally, genetically enhancing general intelligence is technically harder than coding for mood enrichment. The only way I know to create an accelerated biointelligence explosion would be unlikely to pass an ethics committee:
https://www.biointelligence-explosion.com
Ethically, I think our most urgent biological-genetic focus should be ending suffering:
https://www.abolitionist.com

It looks like we're pretty much on the same page here, except where you see a difficult task, I see an impossibility which ought not even be attempted. It's a waste of time and resources, and of course there is the risk factor, of creating extreme division within the human community which I've already mentioned. This is because living beings tend to have very strong feelings concerning the well-being of their offspring, feelings which are not necessarily rational. So to put it bluntly, if you think this process "would be unlikely to pass an ethics committee", why are you discussing it as if it is a viable option? Isn't conspiracy toward something unethical itself unethical?

Variety is a very important aspect of life, I'd argue it's the essence of life. And it is the foundation of evolution. The close relationship between variety and life is probably why we find beauty in variety. Beauty is closely related to good, and the pleasure we derive from beauty has much capacity to quell suffering. This is why there is a custom of giving people who are suffering flowers.

But on the other side of that spectrum, suffering is just as much varied as life is. So the goal of ending suffering through bioengineering is not feasible. This is because such bioengineering endeavours always create uniformity, and the goal of creating difference would produce random monsters. To end all the different sources of suffering would require that all people be the same. I don't think that a thing which has been designed not to suffer could even be called alive.

. So to put it bluntly, if you think this process "would be unlikely to pass an ethics committee", why are you discussing it as if it is a viable option? Isn't conspiracy toward something unethical itself unethical? — Metaphysician Undercover

Sorry, I should have clarified. By an "accelerated biointelligence explosion [that] would be unlikely to pass an ethics committee", I had in mind a deliberate project: cloning with variations super-geniuses like von Neumann (https://www.cantorsparadise.com/the-unparalleled-genius-of-john-von-neumann-791bb9f42a2d); hothousing the genetically modified clones; and repeating the cycle of cloning with variations in an accelerating process of recursive self-improvement. This scenario is different from "ordinary" parents-to-be using preimplantation genetic screening and counselling and soon a little light genetic tweaking. I don't predict an accelerated biointelligence explosion as distinct from a long-term societal reproductive revolution. The reproductive revolution will be more slow-burning. It will most likely start with remedial gene-editing to cure well-acknowledged genetic diseases that almost no one wants to conserve. But humanity will become more ambitious. Germline interventions to modulate pain-tolerance, depression-resistance, hedonic range, prolonged youthful vitality and different kinds of cognitive ability will follow.

Variety is a very important aspect of life, I'd argue it's the essence of life. And it is the foundation of evolution. The close relationship between variety and life is probably why we find beauty in variety. Beauty is closely related to good, and the pleasure we derive from beauty has much capacity to quell suffering. This is why there is a custom of giving people who are suffering flowers. — Metaphysician Undercover

Genome editing can create richer variety than is possible under a regime of natural selection and the meiotic shuffling of traditional sexual reproduction. But diversity isn't inherently good. Darwinian life offers an unimaginable diversity of ways to suffer.

I don't think that a thing which has been designed not to suffer could even be called alive. — Metaphysician Undercover

I promise Jo Cameron and Anders Sandberg ("I do have a ridiculously high hedonic set-point!") are very much alive. The challenge is to ensure all sentient creatures are so blessed. Well-being should be a design specification of sentience, not a fleeting interlude.

Ethically, I think our most urgent biological-genetic focus should be ending suffering: — David Pearce

Well, I think the principal issue is that "suffering" is a very broad, general term, encompassing many types. So the questions of what types of suffering ought to be eliminated, and would eliminating some types increase others, or even create new unforeseen and possibly extremely severe types, is very pertinent.

Well, I think the principal issue is that "suffering" is a very broad, general term, encompassing many types — Metaphysician Undercover

All experience below hedonic zero has something in common. This property deserves to be retired – made physiologically impossible because its molecular substrates are absent. Shortly, its elimination will be technically feasible. Later, its elimination will be sociologically feasible too. A world without suffering may sound "samey". Heaven has intuitively less variety than Hell. However, trillions of magical state-spaces of consciousness await discovery and exploration. Biotech is a godsend; let's use it wisely:
https://www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.html#irreversible

Not my business, but you surely have money. So, get a massage for 24 hours straight, longer even. Force yourself to be there in a state of pleasure, platonic if possible but whatever. You'll get bored of it after some time. You've never had a you day? Where you just eat, do what pleasures you, be pleasured, etc, it gets dull after some time. Beyond the natural need for sleep you just want to feel "normal" or "left alone" after some time. This is human nature. Increasing the hedonic "resting level" does not, at least in my theory, eliminate the hedonic treadmill, if one is aware of greater possibility, one is inclined to seek it with body and mind. If one no longer wishes to strive, would you still call this humanity? What differentiates a group of your imagined transhumans with a group of cell phones plugged in and charged to full capacity?

Increasing the hedonic "resting level" does not, at least in my theory, eliminate the hedonic treadmill, if one is aware of greater possibility, one is inclined to seek it with body and mind. If one no longer wishes to strive, would you still call this humanity? — Outlander

Not humanity, but transhumanity.
No one ever gets bored of mu-opioidergic activation of their hedonic hotspot in the posterior ventral pallidum. But the genetic or pharmacological equivalent of "wireheading" (a misnomer) is not what I or most other transhumanists advocate. In future, steep or shallow information-sensitive gradients of well-being can be navigated with as much or as little motivation as desired. Indeed, it's worth stressing how hedonic uplift can be combined with dopaminergic hypermotivation to counter the objection that perpetual bliss will necessarily turn us into lotus-eaters.

Not humanity, but transhumanity. — David Pearce

How is the gap overcome legally? I've been in the nootropics community for about 10 years, and there's some kind of strong desire to advance human cognition with drugs like the MAPS association or otherwise Neuralink. Yet, legally its hard to overcome some of the problems associated with transhumanity and neoclassical legalism in the West...

How is the gap overcome legally? I've been in the nootropics community for about 10 years, and there's some kind of strong desire to advance human cognition with drugs like the MAPS association or otherwise Neuralink. Yet, legally its hard to overcome some of the problems associated with transhumanity and neoclassical legalism in the West... — Shawn

Yes, the legal obstacles to transhumanism are significant.
For instance, if one is an older person who doesn't want to miss out on transhuman life, then at present it's not lawfully possible to opt for cryothanasia at, say, 75 so one can be cryonically suspended in optimal conditions. If instead you wait until you die "naturally" aged 95 or whatever, then you'll be a shadow of your former self. Your prospects of mind-intact reanimation will be negligible. Effectively irreversible information loss is inevitable.

If you are a responsible prospective parent who wants to choose benign genes for your future children, then currently you can't pre-select benign alleles for your offspring unless you are at risk of passing on an "officially" medically-recognised genetic disorder.

If you are the victim of refractory depression or neuropathic pain, you can't lawfully sign up for a surgical implant and practise "wireheading".

Drugs are another legal minefield. Intellectual progress, let alone the development of full-spectrum superintelligence, depends on developing the study of mind as an experimental discipline: a post-Galilean science of consciousness. After all, one's own consciousness is all one ever directly knows; there's no alternative to the experimental method if one wants to explore both its content and the medium. Classical Turing machines can't help. Digital computers are zombies; despite the AI hype, they can't deliver superintelligence. Likewise, there are tenured professors of mind who are drug-naive. Drug-naivety is the recipe for scholasticism. Most of the best work investigating consciousness is done in the scientific counterculture, not in academia.

That said, dilemmas must be confronted. It's no myth: exploring psychedelics is hazardous: https://www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.html#psychedelics
Informed consent to becoming a psychonaut is impossible. And I'm a hypocrite. Woe betide anyone who tries to stop me taking whatever I choose; yet if I were a parent, then I wouldn't want my children's professors to be permitted to introduce them to psychedelics.

The long-term solution to the hazards of experimentation is genetically programmed invincible well-being. All trips will then be good trips – sometimes illuminating, sometimes magical, but always enjoyable in the extreme. But this scenario is still a pipedream. A moratorium on psychedelic research until we re-engineer our reward circuitry is a moratorium on knowledge.
I don't have a satisfactory answer.

@David Pearce

We understand enough, I think, to sketch out how experience below hedonic zero could be prevented in our forward light-cone. — David Pearce

What makes you think we understand enough to prevent suffering in the whole forward light cone?

To follow up on a question I asked on page 1, after reviewing the material, do you agree with Benatar's Axiological Asymmetry?

What makes you think we understand enough to prevent suffering in the whole forward light cone? — Down The Rabbit Hole

Just as, tragically, a few genetic tweaks can make someone chronically depressed and pain-ridden, conversely a few genetic tweaks can make someone chronically happy and pain-free. CRISPR-based synthetic gene drives (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_drive) that defy the naively immutable laws of Mendelian inheritance allow the deliberate spread of such benign alleles to the rest of Nature even if they carry a modest fitness cost to the individual, which is counterintuitive and sounds ecologically illiterate. For sure, I'm omitting many complications. But an architecture of mind based entirely on gradients of well-being is technically feasible, with or without smart prostheses.

To follow up on a question I asked on page 1, after reviewing the material, do you agree with Benatar's Axiological Asymmetry? — Down The Rabbit Hole

As a negative utilitarian, I agree with (a version of) David Benatar's Axiological Asymmetry. A perfect vacuum would be axiologically as well as physically perfect. I just don't think the asymmetry has the "strong" anti-natalist policy implications that Benatar supposes. The nature of selection pressure means the future belongs to life-lovers. Therefore, NUs should work with the broadest possible coalition of life affirmers to create a world where existing sentience can flourish and new life is constitutionally happy, i.e a world based on information-sensitive gradients of bliss. If intelligent beings modify their own source code, then coming into existence doesn't have to be a harm.

I guess what people will want to say/ask/want to see is.. okay David. Go ahead. Do it with your own kids, do whatever it is as you say. And let us all openly observe them before any talk of ;legislation or anything that involves anybody else.. is involved. Reasonable enough, yes?

Thank you for responding. I have another question.

If humans were to abolish all forms of suffering with technology, as you say, I think the only way of fully accomplishing this would be by constraining the limits of consciousness itself. Just like in the early dystopian We, people would have their imaginations removed, or carefully adjusted so that they could only ever imagine pleasurable things.

I know that you could reply that a concept and the affect it invokes are distinct; that there is no logical relationship between them. That goodness/badness are like different colors of paint being applied to a neutral gray.

In which case, humans would be incapable of feeling negative feelings regarding things we usually find important to feel negative feelings towards. For instance, the death of a loved one invokes sadness. Would technologically-enhanced humans feel sadness?

What about other feelings, like that of accomplishment, that require some degree of struggle beforehand? Would there be an "accomplishment pill" that people would take when they want to feel accomplished, or a "love pill" when people want to feel loved (even if they have accomplished nothing, and have nobody to love)?

Would the removal of all forms of negative feelings include feelings that are important for morality? I can imagine a situation in which blissful slaves work constantly, die frequently, all with a happy smile and no sense that what is being done to them is wrong. How would we be compassionate? How would we feel guilt?

I guess what people will want to say/ask/want to see is.. okay David. Go ahead. Do it with your own kids, do whatever it is as you say. — Outlander

Recall I'm a "soft" anti-natalist. I don't feel ethically entitled to bring more suffering into the world, genetically mitigated or otherwise:
https://www.antinatalism.com

And let us all openly observe them before any talk of legislation or anything that involves anybody else.. is involved. Reasonable enough, yes? — Outlander

It's precisely because creating new sentience does involve someone else that we should try to mitigate the harm:
https://www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.html#antinatal

@David Pearce

As a negative utilitarian, I agree with (a version of) David Benatar's Axiological Asymmetry. — David Pearce

Which version don't you agree with?