> I doubt anyone in this list and most people outside it would prefer to
have
> never existed if they knew they were part of a simulation made by people
> that were much happier than we are.
Count me among those who'd prefer never having lived at all to playing a
part in a simulation made by real (happy) people. Furthermore, their
happiness seems rather cheap if they get off on such tawdry shenanigans.
(I can write "shenanigans" 'cuz it's St. Pat's Day.)
> Despite all the misery that human life
> does have, most people are still happy for being given a chance to live,
> even if they go through hell to do so.
Do we speak for most people? It seems to me too many really smart people
commit suicide precisely because of the hell they go through. "all the
misery that human life does have" seems to function as a way to delete the
elite, i.e., some of the most intelligent among us (including Sasha).
> So what does it matter if the people
> that make the simulation think that the conditions in it are inhuman, so
> long as those in it are satisfied?
It matters because simulating misery has no justifiable principle, and
simulated death (the fate of the simulacrums) does not correlate to
satisfaction.
> Besides, if life was all happiness,
> people would become bored. Otherwise, why would tragedy be so popular?
Tragedy is popular because of schradenfreude.
If life was all happiness, boredom (by definition) would not exist.
τΏτ
Stay hungry,
--J. R.
Useless hypotheses: consciousness, phlogiston, philosophy, vitalism, mind,
free will
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:59:41 MDT