Paradise-engineering: The end of all suffering

[Lullaby Chainer]

Quote by: kubedawg So does it supress mental and physical pain in all cases or just neutral and normally happy stages? What I mean by this is, look at the bad feelings we have for the decisions we make. If I kill someone, will I feel guilty or happy? Everything becomes the same emotion, which will remove all emotion, not knowning what the feeling of pain is mentally and or physically.

We would all perpetually love each other.

All we need is love?

[Nathan Struth]

Hmmm....end of all sufering, we could at least solve a few current problems as this is paradise engineering. I think we first should solve world hunger, war, poverty. Then people can get whatever they want freely. They won't starve and die. maybe theyll still descriminate but with so many things abundant, I doubt they'll care.

[kubedawg]

Quote by: Lullaby Chainer We would all perpetually love each other. All we need is love?

Indeed, but you see my point though right? If we only knew the feeling of love, sure it might take a while for everyone to completely forget about hate and suffering, but once that happens, we become neutral reobots. And because nobody is the same, it's impossible for one to make everyone happy.

[Lullaby Chainer]

Quote by: kubedawg And because nobody is the same, it's impossible for one to make everyone happy.

Biologically, everyone WILL be happy. You can't argue with chemicals.

[Fonceai]

You can't argue with chemicals, but you can argue with human nature.

Addiction, psychosis, and greed will become much more evident.

[Autolykos]

Personally, I define "happiness" as the fulfillment of one's expectations. With this definition, however, there is no such thing as complete happiness, because one's expectations are always changing. Furthermore, they change due to the simple passage of time, if nothing else. All other things being equal, given enough time after I eat, I will feel hungry. The feeling of hunger is a motivation for me to eat again, and so on.

People act when they are somehow dissatisfied. Hunger is a dissatisfaction; it is a negative stimulus. Yet dissatisfaction goes beyond simple biological instincts. When you buy something, you are effectively saying that you prefer what you buy to the money you give up for it. Otherwise, of course, you would not give up that money. Basically, then, people act to put themselves in a better state of affairs than the current one.

Serenity had it right. It's no wonder the fictional drug was called Pax, the Latin word for "peace". Were people to feel completely satisfied all of the time, they would do absolutely nothing. They would indeed remain motionless, wherever they were, until they simply died. Just like in the movie.

What may be most tragic is that this will become a reality. Millions of people may die from such a thing in the not-so-distant future. Virtual reality is another, potentially lethal, problem. For better or for worse, however, these problems will resolve themselves. Those of us who have the self-control to appreciate the struggle that is life will survive.

- Rob

[Fonceai]

It must be the apocalypse... Autolykos and I actually agree.

This is exactly what I was writing about, and Auto pretty much expressed it from the other side...

That people act in order to resolve something they aren't happy about.

Like in The Sims, certain need bars for a person get low. If you are always happy, it doesn't matter if you just pissed yourself or are hungry.

If you are always happy, you get no satisfaction from accomplishing any tasks because you are already happy.

The word "euphoric" is dangerous because it implies that you can't get any happier. So if you're already euphoric, why would you work harder to achieve?

Achievement implies, as Auto said, dissatisfaction.

No euphoria for me, thanks.

Call me old-fashioned, but I want my sex to feel better than life, I want to feel pride in my accomplishments, and I want love to be earned.

[kubedawg]

Quote by: Autolykos Personally, I define "happiness" as the fulfillment of one's expectations. With this definition, however, there is no such thing as complete happiness, because one's expectations are always changing. Furthermore, they change due to the simple passage of time, if nothing else. All other things being equal, given enough time after I eat, I will feel hungry. The feeling of hunger is a motivation for me to eat again, and so on.

And even if one's expectations always stayed the same, they are different from another's expectations therefore, once the conflition happens, who knows what will happen.

This idea of ultimate happiness is comepletely bogus.

[Autolykos]

Quote by: kubedawg And even if one's expectations always stayed the same, they are different from another's expectations therefore, once the conflition happens, who knows what will happen.

Here you have pointed out the cornerstone of "the fallen state of Man".

This idea of ultimate happiness is comepletely bogus.

I completely agree. It's like an asymptote in math -- you can get closer and closer, but never actually reach it.

- Rob

[Hostile55]

correct me if i am wrong but the original article said nothing of dopaminergic overdrive or the complete abolution of dissatisfaction. what it was talking about was preventing suffering. I may be uncomfortable in my bed tonight and this may drive me to want to turn over, but it can hardly be said that i will suffer as a result of this discomfort. Verily, I am felling hungry just now and, as has been said in a previous post, hunger is a dissatisfaction which drives us to want to eat. But I am in no way suffering as a result of this hunger. For a human to be engineered in such a way as to never suffer it is not a requisit that they can never feel dissatisfaction (ie. hunger, tactile discomfort, etc.), but simply that these feelings can never reach such a state of magnification that the person experiencing them can be said to be suffering.

Furthermore, it is apparent to me that humans, psycologically, cannot function healthily in the constraints of civilized society. So, if nothing else, it surley would be the moral thing to suppliment evolution in such a way as to make us able to deal with the stresses of life, which are for the most part unavoidable.

[Lullaby Chainer]

Quote by: Fonceai You can't argue with chemicals, but you can argue with human nature. Addiction, psychosis, and greed will become much more evident.

No.. those too can be controlled by chemicals.

[Fonceai]

Quote by: Lullaby No.. those too can be controlled by chemicals.

Addiction.

As long as the chemical is present, you see no signs of addiction. Better keep them drugged forever, somehow.

Psychosis.

Can't control psychosis with chemicals. An unnatural mental state caused by chemicals can't be controlled by chemicals.

Greed.

I'm not saying this would be evident in people taking the chemicals.

Go rent Equilibrium.

Those in power, the greedy, won't take the chemical. They will find their satisfaction in the power they gain and the money they make by distributing it.

[JohnMK]

Quote by: Fonceai Go rent Equilibrium.

I enjoyed the movie. Philosophical and artistic value, wrapped up in a package of cool.

I don't think chemicals will be needed to engineer a better psychological condition. Genetic engineering, environment, and education will probably be the tools of choice in the future, unless you need a really quick change in psychology.

Especially the more reptilian parts of our brain (e.g. amygdala) that carry with them a lot of baggage can help as much as much as they hinder. The goals will probably be to determine which traits are not good or desirable (for example, constant extreme anxiety, anhedonia (not finding pleasure in much of anything), etc.), and how to turn them off while preserving or enhancing whatever benefits these traits produce. These are achievable goals but probably not anytime soon.

This type of thing will happen, probably, within centuries if not earlier. There is reason to be cautious and concerned; there is corresponding reason to push in this direction.

[Fonceai]

@JohnMK

Genetic engineering is a much more rational way to go.

Chemicals do something artificially.

Genetic engineering is changing the fulcrum of the balance. They'll probably never completely eliminate suffering, but they can genetically create more sensitive dopamine responses, so that it's easier to be happy and harder to be sad.

I'm glad you brought up the genetic engineering aspect. That's where I think it's at.

[kubedawg]

Lol, we could use this on animals so they don't suffer when we kill them

[Lullaby Chainer]

If I may spark a new area for discussion..

What would become of art? Music? Movies? Books?

Also, are any rights being stripped in the making of this ideal?

[Fonceai]

Why create art if you never get that sense of satisfaction from creating?

The art won't even have to be good, because there would be no dissatisfaction with art.

Same with music, movies, and books.