X-Message-Number: 7307
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 96 15:54:13 UT
From: "Robert Ettinger" <>
Subject: SCI. CRYONICS try again

I imagine by now most readers have lost interest in my "values" notes and 
Thomas Donaldson's responses (last Cryonet # 7295). But (misguided?) 
stubbornness compels me to make yet another short effort to clarify my 
project. 

MOTIVATED behavior springs from only one source--the desire to feel good (or 
to feel better). Therefore individual values (wants or needs) depend on the 
physiology of feel-good, located primarily in the part(s) or aspect(s) of the 
brain that are responsible for feeling or subjectivity. Once we understand 
this (and to some extent even without this understanding), any rational 
individual life strategy, and particular choices, will be based on (explicit 
or implicit) use of probability theory aiming to maximize feel-good over 
future time. 

We do not yet know how (or whether) apparent conflicts between wants can be 
reconciled, or how the hierarchies are related, or how undue influence of mere 
habits can feasibly be modified. But we will learn--and even before that, as 
noted, most of us can greatly improve our strategies, just by examining them 
critically.

None of this has any direct relation to Thomas' talk of "selection pressures" 
or the "drive to propagate our genome." The mechanics of speciation and 
socialization are interesting and useful, but entirely secondary. 

The only important thing for a rational person is to improve his own life. To 
do that effectively, one needs first to examine his own values, with a view to 
determining which may be false or inappropriately weighted, from the 
standpoint of maximizing long term enlightened self interest. Often we will 
find that certain attitudes or habits, although undesirable, cannot be easily 
or quickly modified without destroying the personality. We will often find 
that some apparent "sacrifices" are necessary for survival or for the 
integrity of the personality. Yet there is also the possibility, by successive 
iteration, of gradually using our present (derivative) values and our 
intelligence to modify those values and make them more rational, more in 
keeping with the basic value(s).

But mere introspection and calculation, while useful, are insufficient; we 
also need more understanding, as I said, of the physiology of feel-good, of 
the mechanisms of subjectivity. This requires laboratory research as well as 
theoretical speculation--and fortunately, this has begun to happen, although 
not with the direct focus I would like to see.

Robert Ettinger


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