From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Mon Feb 10 2003 - 22:03:26 MST
John Clark writes
> It's true that in a infinite number of universes
> hideous things beyond description happen to you,
> but it is equally true that in a infinite number
> of universes wonderful things beyond imagining
> happen to you; it seems to me the most logical
> emotional state regarding parallel universes
> should be neutral.
I basically agree. David Pearce (www.hedweb.com) has always
worried greatly about the "hell branches", as he calls them,
of the MWI. But he his not taking your balancing hypothesis
to heart.
For what it's worth, when I thought about these things as
a teenager, the evil of suffering in my mind completely
outweighed the beneficence of pleasure, joy, satisfaction,
and contentment in the world. I even went so far at age
eighteen to announce to friends that I would destroy the
world if I could for this very reason.
This is somewhat typical of the way teens value life and
living, and explains why the Marine Corps rejoices in
their recruitment. (It's a lot harder to get a 26 year
old to charge a machine-gun nest.) As adults, we are
constantly amazed at the risk-taking prevalent among
the young.
(For me, this *valuation of life* has only continued to
increase over the decades. I wonder if that's a general
reaction---or perhaps it's just that each succeeding
decade has been slightly better *for me*.)
Isn't the following true? Some patients experiencing
unbearable pain are given control of a wire into their
pleasure center, with instructions to press it whenever
the pain becomes absolutely intolerable, but only then.
The patients report that they are restored to a state
of normalcy, with the evidently incredible pleasure
balancing the incredible pain. For some reason, this
subjective result doesn't surprise me---why shouldn't
our brains be capable of such subconscious integration?
(What I have never understood about this result, however,
is how it comes to pass that the patient doesn't try the
button ever more often, ending up as addicted as one of
Larry Niven's "wireheads", or one of those rats who forego
as long as they live food, drink, and sex in favor of
pressing the button.)
Lee
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