Comments on BLTC thus far are inline with my own thinking and
that of a regular interlocutor of mine..
If successful, BLTC suggests we will be left with numerous levels of
pleasure over and above with which to motivate us - the proverbial
wireheaded suicide rat only dies of neglect if stimulated to it's
maximum capacity indefinitely. This is an excellent point - the
elimination of pain is not equivalent to being maxed out on mind-
blowing orgasms every conscious moment. There are a good deal
of not-pleasant, not-painful conscious states to exists in that would
still allow us to operate in a state motivated by the greater
pleasures without requiring us to suffer in the traditional way.
However, I'm not sure this would get us much of anywhere over an
incrememantal improvement. the behavioural/psychological
spectrum of motivation simply runs a span (a bell curve, perhaps, in
terms of experiential frequecy?) of extremely pleasant to extremely
painful. If pain is removed enitrely, my hunch is that the human (er -
posthuman) psychology will simply, gradually adapt itself to the new
circumstance, to the point where the lower-order blahs (neutral
feelings boredom, etc. but not pain) will simply then fill in for the
function of pain - and become even more undesireable than they
were, just as undesirable (in terms of resultant behaviour) as pain
was, and will defeat the purpose of removing pain in the first place.
(For the same reason that I think the human brain/mind could adapt
itself to eternal hell, I think the opposite also applies - it would adapt
to heaven, too.)
We don't know what kind of limits there are on achieving greater
pleasures to prevent a "pleasure crunch" which would result in
fewer states from which to derive motivation.
We are also unsure about whether we might be able to increase our
pleasure resolution - our ability to distinguish between different
levels of pleasure.
The measure of relative pleasure or pain could be measured by the
strength and intensity of behaviour they reinforce.
It might also be the case that we go so far into the realms of
pleasure that we come full circle. We reach the limits of sensation
only to find that intense "pleasure" can only be brought about by
what was once considered "pain". I have a funny picture of BLTC's
utopia turning into a group of sado-masochistic utopians, bent on
delivering their "pleasure" to the unconverted.... :)
In any case, I'd be up for research on exploring the limits of
pleasure :)
Anton
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