[There may more errors in grammar, spelling, etc., and perhaps even reasoning than usual for reasons that will be apparent in the second half of the article.] I have an argument. It is not an argument that I made, but it is an argument that I cherish because I think it is undervalued, and I have developed it in my own way. I don’t see it around nearly as much as I feel I should because, in my opinion, it blows two of the most popular theories of well-being out of the water.
I'm sorry you're going through this. I appreciate your thoughts and I'm sure the people who know you in person appreciate more than your thoughts as well. Hopefully things become clearer with time in terms of your health and the prognosis is good.
I'm sorry to hear about your health issues. If you haven't already, I would encourage you to consider signing up for cryonics. I don't know exactly what philosophy of self you subscribe to, but I don't think there are many coherent philosophies that would think it's bad to die in your sleep, yet have cryonics not be a good choice. Worth thinking about at least.
One thing I will say- and I plan to put this in an essay at some point- is that if in the future, people are thinking about recreating people based on the traces they've left on the internet, I give my full consent for that- even if the process is somewhat traumatic (e.g. living through a simulated life based on the reconstructable biography plus all other retrievable traces like DNA). I think it would be super cool to have a future-simulacra, and so long as it isn't subject to horrific oppression or something like that, I think my future simulacra would agree.
I'm so sorry to hear of your health problems and I wish you the best of luck in receiving a favourable diagnosis soon.
I've read your blog(s) for years but so far as I can recall have never commented before. You have no idea who I am, yet insights, arguments, and styles of reasoning picked up from your writing now live in my mind - and there are certainly more like me.
Wow, very very sorry to hear this Bear. You are one of my favourite writers - as this fascinating and beautiful post justifies. I really hope for a good outcome for you.
The narrative theory of wellbeing sounds like it would favor the lives of diachronic people over those of episodic people, which to me suggests that it's fundamentally flawed in a way that may not be apparent to most people (in particular, if most people are diachronic and implicitly believe that experiences from episodic lives would inherently be lesser than what they experience).
I'm not sure if holding diachronic and episodic lives to be equal requires one to reject this type of narrative continuity as a factor in wellbeing, but I'd definitely want people to consider this before switching to supporting the narrative theory of wellbeing.
I hope you live a long and happy life and continue to refine and share your ideas all the way into a ripe old age. Should the opposite happen, you won't be forgotten, even by the odd stranger.
I'm so, so sorry to hear about your health issues. Your newsletter has meant a lot to me.
If this context is any help, I have been through four heart surgeries in my life, and cardiac medicine has improved a lot in my time - from having a predicted lifespan of 10 at birth, to going through an open-heart surgery which gave me a pig's valve & required a week in the hospital in 2010, to having a minimally invasive surgery for an artificial valve in 2020, with only around 48 hours spent in the hospital. Science is moving very fast in this area.
Does “ignorance is bliss” play in considering the simple? If there are no moral choices to make, such a world does not rank in a moral hierarchy. As my dad pointed out Ogden Nash’s poem “O Duty! Why hast thou not the visage of a sweetie or a cutie?” seems to call for too simple a moral theory.
We face two kinds of choices: market and moral. In the marketplace we choose mutually beneficial dealing, and such mutuality means they ethical. Then we get to the hard choices, where my maximization is predicated on your loss. The Prisoners’ Dilemma demonstrates that Optimality is the moral course, is consistent with the golden rule (the ethical underpinning of any religion worth spit), and demonstrates the value of cooperation, which is the mode by which humanity has lurched mostly forward in sometimes quantum leaps of progress both technological and moral.
Sorry to hear about your health problems. I hope this passes and that you're back to full health soon.
To engage with the argument in your post: Point 2 is nonsense. The argument asks the reader to imagine two utterly different universes, and then says "For the sake of argument, other than being completely different from each other, these universes are morally identical." Then you say "If you think there is a difference, you owe it to us to explain what it is."
It would be very difficult to meaningfully compare the complex universe with the simple one. The utilitarian approach is to try to add all the relevant factors together and arrive at a single score. But my experience has been that comparisons are always situational, there is no tool or approach or object that is always better in every situation, and context is king. So having two very different universes that are morally equal is impossible, in my view.
The argument is like saying "Imagine an apple. Now imagine an orange that's exactly like an apple. Because the orange is exactly like the apple, the orange has the same value as the apple. If you disagree, you must explain how the orange that's exactly like the apple is different from the apple." The nonsensical assumptions that you're asking your listeners to make are doing all of the work.
I'm sorry you're going through this. I appreciate your thoughts and I'm sure the people who know you in person appreciate more than your thoughts as well. Hopefully things become clearer with time in terms of your health and the prognosis is good.
I'm sorry to hear about your health issues. If you haven't already, I would encourage you to consider signing up for cryonics. I don't know exactly what philosophy of self you subscribe to, but I don't think there are many coherent philosophies that would think it's bad to die in your sleep, yet have cryonics not be a good choice. Worth thinking about at least.
One thing I will say- and I plan to put this in an essay at some point- is that if in the future, people are thinking about recreating people based on the traces they've left on the internet, I give my full consent for that- even if the process is somewhat traumatic (e.g. living through a simulated life based on the reconstructable biography plus all other retrievable traces like DNA). I think it would be super cool to have a future-simulacra, and so long as it isn't subject to horrific oppression or something like that, I think my future simulacra would agree.
I'm so sorry to hear of your health problems and I wish you the best of luck in receiving a favourable diagnosis soon.
I've read your blog(s) for years but so far as I can recall have never commented before. You have no idea who I am, yet insights, arguments, and styles of reasoning picked up from your writing now live in my mind - and there are certainly more like me.
Wow, very very sorry to hear this Bear. You are one of my favourite writers - as this fascinating and beautiful post justifies. I really hope for a good outcome for you.
The narrative theory of wellbeing sounds like it would favor the lives of diachronic people over those of episodic people, which to me suggests that it's fundamentally flawed in a way that may not be apparent to most people (in particular, if most people are diachronic and implicitly believe that experiences from episodic lives would inherently be lesser than what they experience).
I'm not sure if holding diachronic and episodic lives to be equal requires one to reject this type of narrative continuity as a factor in wellbeing, but I'd definitely want people to consider this before switching to supporting the narrative theory of wellbeing.
Best of luck, bear.
I hope you live a long and happy life and continue to refine and share your ideas all the way into a ripe old age. Should the opposite happen, you won't be forgotten, even by the odd stranger.
I'm so, so sorry to hear about your health issues. Your newsletter has meant a lot to me.
If this context is any help, I have been through four heart surgeries in my life, and cardiac medicine has improved a lot in my time - from having a predicted lifespan of 10 at birth, to going through an open-heart surgery which gave me a pig's valve & required a week in the hospital in 2010, to having a minimally invasive surgery for an artificial valve in 2020, with only around 48 hours spent in the hospital. Science is moving very fast in this area.
Does “ignorance is bliss” play in considering the simple? If there are no moral choices to make, such a world does not rank in a moral hierarchy. As my dad pointed out Ogden Nash’s poem “O Duty! Why hast thou not the visage of a sweetie or a cutie?” seems to call for too simple a moral theory.
We face two kinds of choices: market and moral. In the marketplace we choose mutually beneficial dealing, and such mutuality means they ethical. Then we get to the hard choices, where my maximization is predicated on your loss. The Prisoners’ Dilemma demonstrates that Optimality is the moral course, is consistent with the golden rule (the ethical underpinning of any religion worth spit), and demonstrates the value of cooperation, which is the mode by which humanity has lurched mostly forward in sometimes quantum leaps of progress both technological and moral.
Sorry to hear about your health problems. I hope this passes and that you're back to full health soon.
To engage with the argument in your post: Point 2 is nonsense. The argument asks the reader to imagine two utterly different universes, and then says "For the sake of argument, other than being completely different from each other, these universes are morally identical." Then you say "If you think there is a difference, you owe it to us to explain what it is."
It would be very difficult to meaningfully compare the complex universe with the simple one. The utilitarian approach is to try to add all the relevant factors together and arrive at a single score. But my experience has been that comparisons are always situational, there is no tool or approach or object that is always better in every situation, and context is king. So having two very different universes that are morally equal is impossible, in my view.
The argument is like saying "Imagine an apple. Now imagine an orange that's exactly like an apple. Because the orange is exactly like the apple, the orange has the same value as the apple. If you disagree, you must explain how the orange that's exactly like the apple is different from the apple." The nonsensical assumptions that you're asking your listeners to make are doing all of the work.
Stay strong bear, we love you