On 05/06/07, marc.geddes.domain.name.hidden <marc.geddes.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
The human brain doesn't function as a fully reflective system. Too
> much is hard-wired and not accessible to conscious experience. Our
> brains simply don't function as a peroperly integrated system. Full
> reflection would enable the ability to reach into our underlying
> preferences and change them.
What would happen if you had the ability to edit your mind at will? It might
sound like a recipe for terminal drug addiction, because it would be
possible to give yourself pleasure or satisfaction without doing anything to
earn it. However, this need not necessarily be the case, because you could
edit out your desire to choose this course of action if that's what you felt
like doing, or even create a desire to edit out the desire (a second level
desire). There is also the fact that you could as easily assign positive
feelings to some project you consider intrinsically worthwhile as to
idleness, so why choose idleness, or anything else you would feel guilty
about? Perhaps psychopaths would choose to remain psychopaths, but most
people would choose to strengthen what they consider ideal moral behaviour,
since it would be possible to get their guilty pleasures more easily.
--
Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Tue Jun 05 2007 - 06:49:50 PDT