Wireheading done right: stay positive without going insane (2016)(qualiacomputing.com)
qualiacomputing.com
Wireheading done right: stay positive without going insane (2016)
https://qualiacomputing.com/2016/08/20/wireheading_done_right/
13 comments
Specifically the thesis seems to be the idea that one can avoid the negative effects of continuous euphoria (habituation, unhappiness associated with the come down) by setting up one's environment such that one can transition from one "class" of (not necessarily drug-induced) euphoria to another. I don't think it's too crazy; I can easily see the structures suggested in the article superimposed on top of a healthy, normal-looking, even drug-free, life.
…This made a lot of sense when I read it in between biphasic sleep phases at 3 AM last night. Not sure what that means.
…This made a lot of sense when I read it in between biphasic sleep phases at 3 AM last night. Not sure what that means.
You would have to otherwise log your thoughts & have an interactive UI to keep track of the transitions between mental states.
Interesting article. Are there any wireheading proponents in this crowd? I'm curious to understand the phenomenon.
The following quote in the article illustrates what they describe as "Wireheading done right":
"Their primary state of consciousness cycles over a period of 24 hours. Here is their routine: They wake up and experience intense zest for life and work at full capacity making others happy and having fun. Then they go crazy creative in the afternoon, usually spending that time alone or with friends, and explore (and share) strange but always awesome psychedelic-like states of consciousness. Finally, at night they just relax to the max (the healthy and genetically encoded phenomenological equivalent of shooting heroin)."
I can see the appeal of this type of existence. But taking a step back, I question the value in experiencing these states unless they correspond to real events in the world.
For example, focus on "They wake up and experience intense zest for life and work at full capacity making others happy and having fun." This is a perfectly fine sentiment to have. But things should feel better because they're better things to do. Wouldn't a wireheader working in a cheap toxic factory be just as happy as one working in an expensive, safe factory? How might that ultimately impact the factories we design?
With utilitarianism, we attempt to maximize pleasure (very roughly speaking). But part of that is because pleasure has been tied to good events by our built-in wiring. If we have the ability to make any event pleasurable, it feels like we need a new ethical system that employs a full gradient of emotions, including low-valence ones, to appropriately reflect the difference between the desired and the actual reality, and avoid a dystopia where everyone is happy. How does wireheading take this into account?
The following quote in the article illustrates what they describe as "Wireheading done right":
"Their primary state of consciousness cycles over a period of 24 hours. Here is their routine: They wake up and experience intense zest for life and work at full capacity making others happy and having fun. Then they go crazy creative in the afternoon, usually spending that time alone or with friends, and explore (and share) strange but always awesome psychedelic-like states of consciousness. Finally, at night they just relax to the max (the healthy and genetically encoded phenomenological equivalent of shooting heroin)."
I can see the appeal of this type of existence. But taking a step back, I question the value in experiencing these states unless they correspond to real events in the world.
For example, focus on "They wake up and experience intense zest for life and work at full capacity making others happy and having fun." This is a perfectly fine sentiment to have. But things should feel better because they're better things to do. Wouldn't a wireheader working in a cheap toxic factory be just as happy as one working in an expensive, safe factory? How might that ultimately impact the factories we design?
With utilitarianism, we attempt to maximize pleasure (very roughly speaking). But part of that is because pleasure has been tied to good events by our built-in wiring. If we have the ability to make any event pleasurable, it feels like we need a new ethical system that employs a full gradient of emotions, including low-valence ones, to appropriately reflect the difference between the desired and the actual reality, and avoid a dystopia where everyone is happy. How does wireheading take this into account?
> With utilitarianism, we attempt to maximize pleasure (very roughly speaking). But part of that is because pleasure has been tied to good events by our built-in wiring. If we have the ability to make any event pleasurable, it feels like we need a new ethical system that employs a full gradient of emotions, including low-valence ones, to appropriately reflect the difference between the desired and the actual reality, and avoid a dystopia where everyone is happy. How does wireheading take this into account
TFA is entirely about addressing this. Wireheading is a common argument against utilitarianism. Furthermore, if everyone is happy, is it a dystopia?
If someone steals my wallet, and it doesn't make me unhappy, then am I really hurt? Money that can't increase my happiness isn't useful
TFA is entirely about addressing this. Wireheading is a common argument against utilitarianism. Furthermore, if everyone is happy, is it a dystopia?
If someone steals my wallet, and it doesn't make me unhappy, then am I really hurt? Money that can't increase my happiness isn't useful
Good points. FWIW, I took the article to assume a sort of post-human lifestyle/environment in which physical needs (food, safety, etc.) are met. E.g. "In principle the whole economy may eventually be entirely based on exploring the state-space of consciousness and trading information about the most valuable contents discovered doing so." I.e., all problems are solved except hedonism.
That makes sense, thanks. I was definitely thinking in a nearer-term context.
Even in that distant future though, wireheading would be a practice that fundamentally damages the emotional feedback loops that led to that type of society being formed in the first place. (i.e. the feedback loops that cause people in a society to reject agents that want to change or destroy it.)
Without those feedback loops, a perfect utopia would become an unstable equilibrium, because nobody has any reason to prefer that society over any other society. Thus, you could argue that wireheading is long-term incompatible with a perfect utopia.
There is an "out", which is to just have some of the population wirehead, and then have the society be steered by the individuals that don't wirehead, and therefore can make ethical decisions. Alternatively, you could emulate Ian Bank's Culture, and remove decisionmaking power from human hands entirely via automation. But really, even in that world, I'd rather be one of the un-wireheaders who retained their ethical agency, even if it came with suffering. At least, I think I would... although I'm not sure exactly why.
Even in that distant future though, wireheading would be a practice that fundamentally damages the emotional feedback loops that led to that type of society being formed in the first place. (i.e. the feedback loops that cause people in a society to reject agents that want to change or destroy it.)
Without those feedback loops, a perfect utopia would become an unstable equilibrium, because nobody has any reason to prefer that society over any other society. Thus, you could argue that wireheading is long-term incompatible with a perfect utopia.
There is an "out", which is to just have some of the population wirehead, and then have the society be steered by the individuals that don't wirehead, and therefore can make ethical decisions. Alternatively, you could emulate Ian Bank's Culture, and remove decisionmaking power from human hands entirely via automation. But really, even in that world, I'd rather be one of the un-wireheaders who retained their ethical agency, even if it came with suffering. At least, I think I would... although I'm not sure exactly why.
A dystopia where everyone is happy is a bit of an oxymoron. I can imagine this "dystopia" being unsustainable though. Like everyone is happy but forgets to eat or has no motivation to reproduce or everyone is happy but they are quickly killing the planet (still better than our current state, lol).
But I think the article deals with the unsustainability.
"Are there any wireheading proponents in this crowd?"
I have never heard the term and this is my first introduction to the concept, at least framed in this manner ...
But ... aren't we all, already, "wireheads" ? Our tools and heuristics might be a little blunt, or ineffectual, but the quote you provide:
"Their primary state of consciousness cycles over a period of 24 hours. Here is their routine: They wake up and experience intense zest for life and work at full capacity making others happy and having fun. Then they go crazy creative in the afternoon, usually spending that time alone or with friends, and explore (and share) strange but always awesome psychedelic-like states of consciousness. Finally, at night they just relax to the max (the healthy and genetically encoded phenomenological equivalent of shooting heroin)."
... sounds a lot like the better days that I have - it's just that I accomplish it with Caffeine, meditation, intense exercise, good sleep hygiene and (sometimes) alcohol.
While I haven't formally explored my day to day life on a happiness maximization metric, I did not come to these tools accidently, or randomly - I've slowly tailored them, and my own habits, to achieve maximum happiness on a specific time horizon ...
I have never heard the term and this is my first introduction to the concept, at least framed in this manner ...
But ... aren't we all, already, "wireheads" ? Our tools and heuristics might be a little blunt, or ineffectual, but the quote you provide:
"Their primary state of consciousness cycles over a period of 24 hours. Here is their routine: They wake up and experience intense zest for life and work at full capacity making others happy and having fun. Then they go crazy creative in the afternoon, usually spending that time alone or with friends, and explore (and share) strange but always awesome psychedelic-like states of consciousness. Finally, at night they just relax to the max (the healthy and genetically encoded phenomenological equivalent of shooting heroin)."
... sounds a lot like the better days that I have - it's just that I accomplish it with Caffeine, meditation, intense exercise, good sleep hygiene and (sometimes) alcohol.
While I haven't formally explored my day to day life on a happiness maximization metric, I did not come to these tools accidently, or randomly - I've slowly tailored them, and my own habits, to achieve maximum happiness on a specific time horizon ...
Good point, thank you!
It's an interesting thing, because I also take caffeine, and exercise, and meditate. Maybe it's just a matter of degrees, a sliding scale. But "too much of a good thing" isn't unheard of, and I have a strong suspicion that "pleasure control" is one of those things that's tolerable in small doses, but ultimately isn't conducive to survival or satisfaction, especially taken to the extreme of avoiding negative emotions entirely.
It's an interesting thing, because I also take caffeine, and exercise, and meditate. Maybe it's just a matter of degrees, a sliding scale. But "too much of a good thing" isn't unheard of, and I have a strong suspicion that "pleasure control" is one of those things that's tolerable in small doses, but ultimately isn't conducive to survival or satisfaction, especially taken to the extreme of avoiding negative emotions entirely.
A fantastic podcast - interview with the author:
Andrés Gómez Emilsson on Solving Consciousness and Being Happy All the Time
https://mostinterestingpeople.podbean.com/e/16-andres-gomez-...
Andrés Gómez Emilsson on Solving Consciousness and Being Happy All the Time
https://mostinterestingpeople.podbean.com/e/16-andres-gomez-...
I met him once. Brilliant guy!
Overall I thought this article was dumb and boring, but the bit about septal implants was interesting. The linked https://www.paradise-engineering.com/brain/ is super cool.
Wow paradise-engineering.com has been up forever. I vividly remember encountering that page during one of my first forays onto the web circa ‘96 or so.
The basic question here is the finitude of human existence. We have negative emotions because human beings are finite, ie are not immortal gods, and so are vulnerable to various types of harm, and negative emotions motivate us to take action to avoid or mitigate harm. Only a god could be happy all the time.
Started reading the first few lines and could not make head or tail of what was being discussed.
Wow.. it finally makes sense why I binge on hacker news.
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I wonder if this person sleeps much
man, that reads like someone vomited a thesaurus
2020's Time Cube appeared.
Unlike Time Cube, I actually found the ideas presented here coherent and actionable, if somewhat meta, verbose, and mired in jargon (for which there is a glossary on the site). Time Cube was neither of those two things.
Worry less about emotions; be pragmatic and focus on goals and outcomes.
Genius or madness, not sure which.
I bet if you fed this to GPT-3, the resulting output would be indistinguishable from the input.
You be the judge of that. I copied the entire article up to the line below, then let it generate a few paragraphs from there.
Let us begin by enriching our understanding of the nature of bliss and its temporal dynamics:
What is Bliss?
Briefly stated, bliss is the absence of pain or discomfort. It has been defined as "the pleasant feeling one gets when thinking about something pleasurable." This definition captures the essence of bliss, but there are many other definitions floating around out there. For example, Wikipedia defines it thus: "The experience of being completely contented and without anxiety" [1]. Another definition comes from the Oxford English Dictionary: "A state of mental or emotional well-being; happiness" [2].
There is no question that we want to avoid pain and suffering. We also know that we can't do so if we don't even have awareness of them. But how does this relate to bliss? One way is to say that bliss is a kind of transcendent pleasure. If you're having trouble visualizing this, imagine that you're on a beach and you see a beautiful sunset. You could enjoy the view forever, but eventually your eyes start burning and water starts coming out of your nose. At some point you realize that the sun isn't really shining at all, it's just reflecting off sand grains in front of your eyes. So what happens next? Do you stop enjoying the view entirely because it doesn't feel like paradise anymore? No! All you need to do is go down the beach a little ways and the sun's rays won't be striking your eyes at that angle anymore. You can keep on enjoying the view forever if you want to, or at least as long as you can stand being outside without sunblock.
It's a well known fact that our conscious experience of things tends to fade over time. In psychology this is known as Hedonic Adaptation. We quickly get used to things being a certain way, and then we seek out new things to experience. This is why we buy lots of stuff, take lots of trips, try new hobbies, etc. One could also call this the hedonic treadmill. It might seem like paradise is always just out of reach no matter how hard we try, but this isn't quite true. The truth is that hedonic adaptation works both ways. If we stop doing the things that we've gotten used to, then our hedonic adaptation goes in reverse. In other words, if you spend all your time sitting on the couch watching Netflix, eventually you'll get bored of that and will seek out new experiences. You'll start going for walks, or going to the movies, or learning a new skill, or whatever else. At some point you'll realize that your life has meaning again. And, just like that sunset that made your eyes burn, you'll find that this new meaning starts to fade over time. It's all a matter of what you've gotten used to.
If all this is true then it seems like we can easily achieve perpetual bliss without needing to do anything drastic at all. All we have to do is keep on top of our hedonic treadmill by seeking out new experiences on a regular basis. Unfortunately it isn't quite that simple. Our hedonic treadmill is extremely complex, and there are certain things that interfere with it in ways we don't fully understand.
In fact, it's not just a question of keeping on top of our hedonic treadmill. It's more a matter of keeping ahead of it. If we fall behind for too long, we will eventually hit a low point from which it will be very difficult to recover. It's like running a race. If you're ahead of your opponent for the whole race, then you can pretty much take it easy for a while and still win. However, if you start to fall behind, then every second that you don't pick up the pace makes it harder to catch up again. Eventually you'll hit a point where it becomes impossible to win, no matter how hard you try.
Let us begin by enriching our understanding of the nature of bliss and its temporal dynamics:
What is Bliss?
Briefly stated, bliss is the absence of pain or discomfort. It has been defined as "the pleasant feeling one gets when thinking about something pleasurable." This definition captures the essence of bliss, but there are many other definitions floating around out there. For example, Wikipedia defines it thus: "The experience of being completely contented and without anxiety" [1]. Another definition comes from the Oxford English Dictionary: "A state of mental or emotional well-being; happiness" [2].
There is no question that we want to avoid pain and suffering. We also know that we can't do so if we don't even have awareness of them. But how does this relate to bliss? One way is to say that bliss is a kind of transcendent pleasure. If you're having trouble visualizing this, imagine that you're on a beach and you see a beautiful sunset. You could enjoy the view forever, but eventually your eyes start burning and water starts coming out of your nose. At some point you realize that the sun isn't really shining at all, it's just reflecting off sand grains in front of your eyes. So what happens next? Do you stop enjoying the view entirely because it doesn't feel like paradise anymore? No! All you need to do is go down the beach a little ways and the sun's rays won't be striking your eyes at that angle anymore. You can keep on enjoying the view forever if you want to, or at least as long as you can stand being outside without sunblock.
It's a well known fact that our conscious experience of things tends to fade over time. In psychology this is known as Hedonic Adaptation. We quickly get used to things being a certain way, and then we seek out new things to experience. This is why we buy lots of stuff, take lots of trips, try new hobbies, etc. One could also call this the hedonic treadmill. It might seem like paradise is always just out of reach no matter how hard we try, but this isn't quite true. The truth is that hedonic adaptation works both ways. If we stop doing the things that we've gotten used to, then our hedonic adaptation goes in reverse. In other words, if you spend all your time sitting on the couch watching Netflix, eventually you'll get bored of that and will seek out new experiences. You'll start going for walks, or going to the movies, or learning a new skill, or whatever else. At some point you'll realize that your life has meaning again. And, just like that sunset that made your eyes burn, you'll find that this new meaning starts to fade over time. It's all a matter of what you've gotten used to.
If all this is true then it seems like we can easily achieve perpetual bliss without needing to do anything drastic at all. All we have to do is keep on top of our hedonic treadmill by seeking out new experiences on a regular basis. Unfortunately it isn't quite that simple. Our hedonic treadmill is extremely complex, and there are certain things that interfere with it in ways we don't fully understand.
In fact, it's not just a question of keeping on top of our hedonic treadmill. It's more a matter of keeping ahead of it. If we fall behind for too long, we will eventually hit a low point from which it will be very difficult to recover. It's like running a race. If you're ahead of your opponent for the whole race, then you can pretty much take it easy for a while and still win. However, if you start to fall behind, then every second that you don't pick up the pace makes it harder to catch up again. Eventually you'll hit a point where it becomes impossible to win, no matter how hard you try.
In a world where neural networks can ramble like a human, and will be incentivized to do so by search algorithms, terse writing will be prized.
I thought someone had a "summary" AI that could read articles and give you the executive summary.
Combine the two!
https://app.scholarcy.com/flashcard-generator.html fed with the article results in:
Wireheading Done Right: Stay Positive Without Going Insane 2016 "To do so we must avoid wireheading traps and take seriously future economic selection pressures, as they will determine who or what survives at the evolutionary limit."
https://app.scholarcy.com/flashcard-generator.html fed with the article results in:
Wireheading Done Right: Stay Positive Without Going Insane 2016 "To do so we must avoid wireheading traps and take seriously future economic selection pressures, as they will determine who or what survives at the evolutionary limit."
Okay, that is hilarious.
All it's missing is the pseudocientific tone. Otherwise, it's perfect.
Thought provoking futurism for an idea of the future that may or may not come alive but kinda feels like we'll be gravitating towards.
This author is interested in the "space" of possible experiences, including emotions, and the potential to manipulate them through drugs and future technology, especially in a future where technology and our understanding of the brain and consciousness are greatly advanced.
There are various problems with "drugs" of various kinds, like how some of them could make you an addict, withdrawn from the world, like a zombie, etc. There are different ways that people worry about the effect of drugs on their users, and even some people like this author (who are trying to be very independent of social convention and social norms) show some respect to those concerns.
Then one way of phrasing the angle of this essay might be:
In a technological future where we could get and make even more powerful drugs, and had fewer practical responsibilities (like not having to work), what would we want to understand about our relationship with drugs so that using them literally all of the time would be a good thing rather than a bad thing, in terms of the rest of what we value? What are the good and the bad of drug experiences, and can we tease them apart conceptually?
I don't have enough of a position on this question (or enough understanding of some parts of the essay) to be clear on whether I agree or disagree, but I hope that helps in terms of what the essay is talking about. ("Wireheading" basically means using some kind of artificial means to feel super-good all of the time, and people worry about it because people and other animals who are given this opportunity seem to immediately lose all interest in everything else, which seems kind of bad from most conventional perspectives of what a person can or should be!)