From: John K Clark (johnkclark@fastmail.fm)
Date: Sat Apr 26 2008 - 10:20:16 MDT
On Fri, 25 Apr 2008 "Stuart Armstrong"
<dragondreaming@googlemail.com> said:
> We could instruct our "happy box" to make us
> deliriously happy while AT THE SAME TIME we do
> a lot of other, productive things[...] Yes, I
> would want to. And if given the option, I would.
That is easy to say but harder to do. All hard core drug addicts want to
want to get off drugs, but unfortunately they don’t want to get off
drugs.
> It probably depends on how the "happiness box" evolves.
Indeed!
> I'm sure you can be ecstatically happy without
> turning into an drooling imbecile.
I am less than sure. If only one emotion, ecstatic happiness,is
necessary, if you can perform all sorts productive activities while
feeling nothing but ecstatically happy even when a Saber Toothed Tiger
is chasing you then why did Evolution invent so many other emotions
besides Happiness?
I think if you were ALWAYS ecstatically happy you would be a drooling
imbecile, or at least you’d be a man who never accomplished anything
important in life. And if there is a correlation between happiness and
intelligence it seems to be a negative correlation. Consider two men,
one has an IQ of 90 and the other has an IQ of 190, I think the 190 man
is more likely to suffer occasional depression than the 90 fellow.
> In the words of Euler, Monsieur,
> (a + bn)/n = x, therefore you are wrong!
I thought it was e^iPI + 1 = 0 therefore God exists.
John K Clark
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