Yesterday we had a wonderful course in writing and media here at STHF,
which of course ended up with a gaggle of transhumanists discussing
interesting subjects far, far into the night. One idea a friend
suggested seems related to this thread:
Assuming sufficient neurotechnology, he wanted to experience all the
different levels of pain. After all, how does having an arm ripped off
or being crucified really feel? With neurotech you could experience it
with no lasting ill effects, and it might be an useful experience to
really know how bad pain could be to get a good perspective on
life. Of course, having a VR experience of being crucified and knowing
that it is all just a simulation would remove some of the sting, so
ideally the simulation would also temporarily erase the awareness of
this being a simulation.
This of course raises some moral questions, like if your present self
has the right to create a future self in great pain and no way of
avoiding it (my answer would be that it is OK - potential people have
no rights), or if it would be moral for somebody else to end the pain
as the agonised future self most likely would want (this is trickier;
it goes against the self determination of the original version, but
the simulation-modified self is also a person who has rights; since
the original does not exist for the moment helping the agonized self
if it wants too is right, but as soon as it reverts to the
pre-simulation state it might decide to continue the exercise
anyway). There are also some learning problems, since intense pain can
cause excess levels of neurotransmittors enhancing memory and hence
laying the ground for unwanted side effects such as PTSD, but this can
likely be moderated by neurotech.
I did a quick order-of-magnitude calculation of the number of
different pain stimuli that were possible. If we assume one million
pain receptors active at ten different rates, then we can get 10^10^6
possible pain-configurations. Experiencing them all would take nearly
forever (and be a very good approximation of hell - a combination of
pain and boredom), so one has to be selective in what experiences to
experience since most are utterly alike and uninteresting.
Maybe this kind of extreme experience cognitive engineering is going
to be a popular thing among the posthumans? A kind of dare, passage
rite/education or just entertainment? Of course, pain is just one
possible dimension to experience, one can do the same for pleasure.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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