From: Vladimir Nesov (robotact@gmail.com)
Date: Mon Mar 17 2008 - 09:46:38 MDT
On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 2:26 AM, Jeff L Jones <jeff@spoonless.net> wrote:
>
> This is something that has always bugged me about a lot of
> immortalists. It seems like a big motivation for many immortalists is
> that they want to "keep on experiencing" things. But to me, that's
> silly. You can't keep on experience things... but you can affect the
> future. I'd like to radically extend my life, but only because I have
> certain goals I want accomplished in the future and I don't trust
> anyone else besides my "future self" to accomplish them. Nor do I
> think I can accomplish even a small fraction of them in a natural
> lifespan. In my opinion, my reasons for wanting life extension are
> rational, whereas a lot of people want life extension for irrational
> reasons (reasons based on the illusion of the self).
>
Some of these goals are about keeping future you around, in conditions
you enjoy. There is no difference (and boundaries) between goals of
preserving a "you" and achieving goals that are seemingly not about
"you". Choice of goals also has little to do with being rational or
irrational -- it's somewhat arbitrary, and it's a property of your
makeup. Rationality merely calculates beliefs that you can employ to
further your random goals. Rationality can also help you with
reflection, to understand how you work, and what you'll try to
accomplish according to which goals that you embody. Luckily
hodgepodge of human drives is not consistent, so you will likely be
able to choose to discard most of them.
-- Vladimir Nesov robotact@gmail.com
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