Reading Period: January 01 - Present
1. The Hedonistic Imperative (P), by David Pearce
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18042414-the-hedonistic-imperative
Fascinating book. Full of incredibly interesting, controversial ideas that make you question your entire worldview. Do we need to suffer? Or can our existence instead be made, through drugs, nanobots, and genetic engineering, to instead be one of competing "gradients of bliss?"
Let's say that our current experience runs between -10 and 10, with , -10 being immense suffering, 0 being neutral feelings/happiness/utility, and 10 being immense happiness. If we could change the scale to instead be between 6 and 10, deleting from existence anything below a 6, would that not be the single biggest net positive decision in history? Many moral frameworks would argue we have an imperative to do so. Is our current menu of pleasure and pain a philosophical certainty, or a soon-to-be-relic of a horrifyingly immoral evolutionary past?
David states that "The 'hedonic treadmill' ensures that very few of us can be very happy for very long. An interplay of cruelly effective negative feedback mechanisms is at work in the central nervous system. Feedback inhibition ensures that a majority of people would be periodically bored, depressed or angst-ridden in a recreated Garden of Eden." If you think about it, there doesn't seem to be any obvious reason why would couldn't engineer away chronic pain from an individual's experience. With sufficient technology, it's pretty conceivable that we could engineer away all pain entirely. David thinks we are morally required to, and that we eventually will. He's not afraid to pull punches, and he follows his own claims to their logical conclusion. This is the type of intellectual courage I respect! Even if it leads to statements that are sure to cater controversy, such as the following: "Future parents who decide, whether in deference to God or Nature, to decline gene-therapy for a child they know will likely grow up depressive, for example, may be open to accusations of child-abuse. Responsible parents, on the other hand, will want to get their kids the best happiness money can buy."
David argues that the predator-prey relationship in the wild is pretty messed up, and once we're able to, we probably shouldn't have lions hunting down and terrifying gazelle. We're predisposed to see nature as beautiful and meaningful, and while we'd rescue a drowning squirrel, we certainly wouldn't prevent one from being eaten by a coyote (circle of life, and all). Is this coherent? Negative utilitarians like David see nature as a suffering-filled-horror-show, and they're not entirely wrong. Also, there's a clear issue with our gut reactions, as we've been pre-disposed with evolutionary programming and desires. Are David's ideas really crazy? Or maybe, we can't trust ourselves to be objective here. David claims: "Is one's potential unease, if not revulsion, at the prospect of paradise-on-earth an incidental cultural by-product of natural selection? Or has selection pressure ensured that one is genetically predisposed to be biased against the idea of enduring bliss in the first instance?"
Quick criticism - I don't think David understands correlation/causation, or he recklessly disregards common understanding in a way that is extremely disappointing. An easy claim to make is that we'll just turn into wire-headed drug addicts, mice that keep smashing the "cocaine" button. Why do anything productive if we're just blissfully happy? Maybe we wouldn't reproduce, or we become content with our overlords, or we stop being productive. All pretty stunningly obvious ideas. David has an extremely weak response: "The argument that our descendants might become functional wireheads, too happy to reproduce, isn't compelling either. Happy people tend to want more sex, not less." He also states: "It's depressives who are prone to procrastinate; by contrast, happy people are typically decisive, extremely happy people more so." And finally: "Given the correlation between depressed mood and low social status, the project of radically enriching the mood and motivation of the bulk of the population will probably leave people much less, not more, vulnerable to exploitation by a power-elite."
One obvious logical implication of David's thinking is that we have a moral imperative to change the hedonistic scale of not just to our species, but of every life form and alien species. We need to rewire the brain chemistry of every gazelle, and every life form on distant planets (Pluribus much?). David, however, chooses this moment to step out. "If multi-cellular evolution occurs, such alien life-forms will quite plausibly run on the same pleasure-pain axis as we do. Of course, this is all hugely speculative. And if trying to save the wold is ambitious, then trying to save the universe smacks of hubris; so this avenue won't be pursued further here." I was a bit disappointed in this, given how willing he is to meet controversy head-on until this point. Perhaps interstellar colonialism is a bridge to far.
When it comes to meaningful political decisions, I don't think we should let negative utilitarians make any decisions. It's easy to claim that "no amount of happiness enjoyed by some organisms can notionally justify the indescribable horrors of Auschwitz." However, this philosophical outlook generally leads to the conclusion that we should pave the rainforests and stop reproducing. I guess in this case, instead of paving the rainforests you forcefully alter the brain chemistry of every entity in the rainforest. It might be the correct outlook, but given the weight of our uncertainty, and the fact that these people are generally moral non-realists, I've never embraced many actionable-insights that come out of this worldview. However, I think it can point us in new, novel, and actionably correct directions.
Quotes:
"The present dimensions of the human mind and its affective capabilities are limited by the size of the female birth canal."
"It is chastening to reflect that a seemingly minor molecular variation in neuro-protein generates types of experience as disparate as sight and sound. Heaven knows what further incommensurable modes of what-it's-like-ness ("qualia") will be disclosed when much more far-reaching changes in the architecure of excitable cells are engineered."
2. The Birth of Tragedy (P), by Friedrich Nietzsche
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2823.The_Birth_of_Tragedy
I've tried so many times to read Friedrich's writing, and I never enjoy it. This probably wasn't the best one to finally get through because I don't find the subject matter compelling, but I trudged through nonetheless. Probably won't read another.
3. Amok (P), by Stefan Zweig
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33297733-amok-ko-ucusu
A
"The one human right one has left is to die as one wishes, and keep well away from any stranger's help."
4. Death's End (A), by Cixin Liu
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25451264-death-s-end
A
