Theory

[icycalm]

Years ago I used to think that AI was very important for the future of videogames. Now I am certain that it's not. Still, it remains an interesting subject, not as an area of study that might one day lead us to techniques for creating intelligent entities (we can already do this, and it only takes nine months), but as a way of understanding intelligence per se. How it works, what makes it tick, etc. So I recently decided to start reading up on the subject, and I'll be posting relevant links/info here, starting with this:

http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/whatisai/

Q. Yes, but what is intelligence?

A. Intelligence is the computational part of the ability to achieve goals in the world. Varying kinds and degrees of intelligence occur in people, many animals and some machines.

[loser]

I think Artificial intelligence is an interesting subject chiefly because it might one day lead us to techniques for creating entities far more intelligent than even the brightest non-augmented human. Human intelligence is reportedly limited by the limitation in brain size caused by the small birth canal of human females, and though brain cells can develop during a person's lifetime, there is little hope for anything rivalling the massive increases in intelligence that are predicted for machine-based agents which can instantly benefit from hardware upgrades and provide more fine-grained control over their software. Since augmented humans and pure AIs will be far more intelligent and have far quicker reflexes than non-augmented humans, they will probably need far more complex games in order to be entertained. And only AI will be capable of creating these more complex games. Therefore AI will be instrumental to the future of videogames. If you want to understand where AI and society at large is headed in the coming decades, you should read Ray Kurzweil's books. The most up-to-date one is The Singularity Is Near. His grand vision is that intelligence will eventually turn the entire universe into a computational substrate that hosts uploaded minds.

[icycalm]

lol at Ray Kurzweil. There have been people, with the level of intelligence we have NOW, who were far too smart to be entertained by the universe we find ourselves in. Smarter entities would just commit suicide the moment you created them.

If you want to understand where AI and society at large is headed in the coming decades, you should read Ray Kurzweil's books. The most up-to-date one is The Singularity Is Near. His grand vision is that intelligence will eventually turn the entire universe into a computational substrate that hosts uploaded minds.

"If I want to understand" lol. His "grand vision" lol. This is what happens when you spend your life feeding your brain with the intellectual equivalent of Big Macs.

[icycalm]

I went through his Wikipedia entry.

Touching on his most important predictions, Kurzweil believes that, between now and 2050, technology will become so advanced that new medicines and medical techniques will allow people to radically extend their lifespans while preserving and even improving quality of life. The aging process could at first be slowed, then halted, and then reversed as newer and better medical technologies became available.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil

How naive do you have to be to think that "quality of life" can be improved while at the same time halting -- or even reversing! -- the aging process? I guess "quality of life" for people like him means watching soap operas and reading bad science fiction novels from now to eternity. The more the better, right? Right.

A "worthy clumsy empiricist" is what Nietzsche would have said of Mr. Kurzweil, if he was still around.

In the last resort there exists an order of rank of states of soul with which the order of rank of problems accords; and the supreme problems repel without mercy everyone who ventures near them without being, through the elevation and power of his spirituality, predestined to their solution. Of what avail is it if nimble commonplace minds or worthy clumsy mechanicals and empiricists crowd up to them, as they so often do today, and with their plebeian ambition approach as it were this 'court of courts'! But coarse feet may never tread such carpets: that has been seen to in the primal law of things; the doors remain shut against such importunates, though they may batter and shatter their heads against them!

[icycalm]

Interesting quote:

Only a small community has concentrated on general intelligence. No one has tried to make a thinking machine and then teach it chess — or the very sophisticated oriental board game Go. [...] The bottom line is that we really haven't progressed too far toward a truly intelligent machine. We have collections of dumb specialists in small domains; the true majesty of general intelligence still awaits our attack. [...] We have got to get back to the deepest questions of AI and general intelligence and quit wasting time on little projects that don't contribute to the main goal.

http://sss.stanford.edu/others/marvinminsky/

The rest of the talking heads on that page are mostly full of shit.

[icycalm]

The philosopher gets closer to the truth than anyone else!

The world is Organized by embodied beings like us to be coped with by beings like us. The computer would be totally lost in our world. It would have to have in it a model of the world and a model of the body, which AI researchers have tried, but it's certainly hopeless. Without that, the world is just utterly un-graspable by computers.

He gets it wrong in the next quote, though, by introducing the spurious concept of "intuitive intelligence":

The truth is that human intelligence can never be replaced with machine intelligence simply because we are not ourselves thinking machines. Each of us has, and uses every day, a power of intuitive intelligence that enables us to understand, to speak, and to cope skillfully with our everyday environment.

http://sss.stanford.edu/others/hubertdreyfus/

[icycalm]

'Could a machine think?' My own view is that only a machine could think, and indeed only very special kinds of machines, namely brains and machines that had the same causal powers as brains. And that is the main reason strong AI has had little to tell us about thinking, since it has nothing to tell us about machines. By its own definition, it is about programs, and programs are not machines. Whatever else intentionality is, it is a biological phenomenon, and it is as likely to be as causally dependent on the specific biochemistry of its origins as lactation, photosynthesis, or any other biological phenomena. No one would suppose that we could produce milk and sugar by running a computer simulation of the formal sequences in lactation and photosynthesis, but where the mind is concerned many people are willing to believe in such a miracle because of a deep and abiding dualism: the mind they suppose is a matter of formal processes and is independent of quite specific material causes in the way that milk and sugar are not.

http://sss.stanford.edu/others/johnsearle/

Another philosopher, and this one is 100% correct. John Searle, I salute you.

[icycalm]

Contrast the profundity of the philosophers' thought with the shallowness of the lawyer's:

human beings will potentially enjoy the kind of powers and pleasures traditionally assigned to gods or beings in heaven: Limitless lifespans, if not immortality, superhuman powers, virtually limitless wealth, fleshly pleasures on demand, etc.

http://sss.stanford.edu/others/glennreynolds/

The poor wretch actually thinks this would be a good thing.

[icycalm]

The "I give up" approach to philosophizing. No wonder an astrophysicist is championing it.

I certainly think that humans are not the limit of evolutionary complexity. There may indeed be post–human entities, either organic or silicon–based, which can in some respects surpass what a human can do. I think it would be rather surprising if our mental capacities were matched to understanding all the keys levels of reality. The chimpanzees certainly aren't, so why should ours be either?

Because we are capable of asking this question.

http://sss.stanford.edu/others/martinrees/

[icycalm]

And then you have Bill Gates chiming in with the understatement of the millenium, lol:

If you invent a breakthrough in artificial intelligence, so machines can learn, that is worth 10 Microsofts.

http://sss.stanford.edu/others/billgates/

[loser]

Well, you've certainly made me look ridiculous. Sorry to waste your time with the intellectual equivalent of Big Macs. But with the hope of learning something from this thread, I'm interested in hearing what specific arguments you have against the technological singularity. Do you believe it is an implausible scenario, and/or an undesirable one? Regarding plausibility, there are advances in the speed of computer hardware and the resolution of brain scanning that are making it possible to create computer models of the human brain. According to Kurzweil, this is the most likely path to superhuman intelligence, but there are others. Regarding desirability, I'm not convinced that a superintelligence would necessarily commit suicide. There are many intelligent people alive today who seem to find life worth living, such as Stephen Hawking who is quoted on that site. Regarding halting the aging process, I presume he means our physical trappings, not our maturity. Do you believe that life would be meaningless without the prospect of aging towards an inevitable death? Not much seems to have been written about AI suicide; I only found this article: The Day We All Killed Ourselves. It seems to me that life is meaningful as long as there are interesting problems to be tackled, and that a superintelligence would only opt to kill itself after having exhaustively studied every interesting problem, if then. I lack the imagination to predict when, if ever, it would accomplish this. What do you think?

[Evo]

Not much seems to have been written about AI suicide.

Well except that it has been a topic hanging around for some 70 odd years at least in science fiction.

[mees]

There are many intelligent people alive today who seem to find life worth living, such as Stephen Hawking who is quoted on that site.

Really, how would Stephen Hawking commit suicide?

Regarding halting the aging process, I presume he means our physical trappings, not our maturity.

If you had read Searle's quote above, you would realize that the two are inextricably linked.

Do you believe that life would be meaningless without the prospect of aging towards an inevitable death?

Life is meaningful?

It seems to me that life is meaningful as long as there are interesting problems to be tackled, and that a superintelligence would only opt to kill itself after having exhaustively studied every interesting problem, if then. I lack the imagination to predict when, if ever, it would accomplish this. What do you think?

It would only be able to exhaust "every interesting problem" if it could conceive of "every interesting problem," and thus it finds itself in the same position as those very intelligent people that icycalm references, who really see nothing left to be done.

[icycalm]

I'm interested in hearing what specific arguments you have against the technological singularity. Do you believe it is an implausible scenario, and/or an undesirable one?

Regarding plausibility, it's not a question which interests me, since I can give two answers that take care of both possibilities:

--If the singularity is plausible and we achieve it then that would be the end of the human race, AND the end of the supercomputer race which we'd end up constructing.

--If the singularity is implausible then all is well and we just keep doing what we've always been doing.

So I have nothing "against" the singularity. It is a mildly interesting concept, and it could be real or it could be baloney, but the fact is that there are far more interesting problems out there, and far more important ones.

Regarding desirability, I'm not convinced that a superintelligence would necessarily commit suicide. There are many intelligent people alive today who seem to find life worth living, such as Stephen Hawking who is quoted on that site.

You do not understand what I mean by "intelligence". Stephen Hawking is in no way intelligent in my use of the word -- he is in fact quite stupid. It's funny how, whenever the subject of intelligence is raised, people always mention some "clumsy empiricist" as an example of an intelligent person. Never a philosopher! Never a Montaigne or a Spinoza or a Baudrillard! It's always some little dude who mucks about in a dark room for three decades with half a dozen little equations. He shuffles them around for a while and then eventually, finally comes up with a new one! And that's what people mean by "intelligence".

I have read several of Hawking's books. Whenever he is NOT talking about equations I feel like I am being lectured by a 15-year-old.

Here, have a passage from Schopenhauer, who certainly was a genuinely intelligent person:

All branches of learning have thus been so much enlarged that he who would “do something” has to pursue no more than one subject and disregard all others. In his own subject he will then, it is true, be superior to the vulgar; but in all else he will belong to it. If we add to this that neglect of the ancient languages, which is now-a-days on the increase and is doing away with all general education in the humanities—for a mere smattering of Latin and Greek is of no use—we shall come to have men of learning who outside their own subject display an ignorance truly bovine.

An exclusive specialist of this kind stands on a par with a workman in a factory, whose whole life is spent in making one particular kind of screw, or catch, or handle, for some particular instrument or machine, in which, indeed, he attains incredible dexterity. The specialist may also be likened to a man who lives in his own house and never leaves it. There he is perfectly familiar with everything, every little step, corner, or board; much as Quasimodo in Victor Hugo’s Nôtre Dame knows the cathedral; but outside it, all is strange and unknown.

For true culture in the humanities it is absolutely necessary that a man should be many-sided and take large views; and for a man of learning in the higher sense of the word, an extensive acquaintance with history is needful. He, however, who wishes to be a complete philosopher, must gather into his head the remotest ends of human knowledge: for where else could they ever come together?

It is precisely minds of the first order that will never be specialists. For their very nature is to make the whole of existence their problem; and this is a subject upon which they will every one of them in some form provide mankind with a new revelation. For he alone can deserve the name of genius who takes the All, the Essential, the Universal, for the theme of his achievements; not he who spends his life in explaining some special relation of things one to another.

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopen ... pter4.html

Regarding halting the aging process, I presume he means our physical trappings, not our maturity.

Of course that's what he means. That's what I meant too.

Do you believe that life would be meaningless without the prospect of aging towards an inevitable death?

I'll leave the answer to this question for my book. Why don't you try to work it out on your own though? It's not that hard. Just try to imagine what your life would be like if you were an immortal. Better yet, if you were an immortal living in a world populated by immortals. Here's a starting point for you: World of Warcraft.

Not much seems to have been written about AI suicide

Goes to show how really "intelligent" your esteemed authorities are!

I only found this article: The Day We All Killed Ourselves. It seems to me that life is meaningful as long as there are interesting problems to be tackled, and that a superintelligence would only opt to kill itself after having exhaustively studied every interesting problem, if then. I lack the imagination to predict when, if ever, it would accomplish this. What do you think?

The article you linked was perfectly reasonable; your comments about it are not. We don't need "superintelligences" in order to tackle the most interesting problems. "If a question can be framed at all, it is also possible to answer it." -- That's what Wittgenstein explained, and he was certainly a very intelligent man. People should try to understand what the hell he was talking about before they take off into the bushes in search of "superintelligences" and other such mythical beasts. Some Kant wouldn't hurt either!

Also!

a superintelligence would only opt to kill itself after having exhaustively studied every interesting problem, if then.

It is not necessary to "exhaustively study" an interesting problem in order to solve it -- all you have to do is just solve it and move on, until there's nowhere else to move on to. Then you must simply stop moving -- if you really do have some actual intelligence, that is. If you don't, you just pretend you haven't solved it and keep going. This is what pseudophilosophers, sociologists and political scientists are currently doing, for example. If you want to try to understand what the hell I am talking about here, Baudrillard's "In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities" would be a good start.

[icycalm]

Regarding halting the aging process, I presume he means our physical trappings, not our maturity.

If you had read Searle's quote above, you would realize that the two are inextricably linked.

No one even knows what "maturity", in the psychological sense (which I presume is the one you are implying), is supposed to be. Is a workaholic businessman more "mature" than, say, an adventurous 20-year-old backpacker whose goal in life is to see the world? People just use the word as a means to praise or disparage others, according to whether they agree or not with their outlook on life. The word is largely meaningless.

[mees]

Yeah, I realized later that what loser had written was basically nonsensical, but I have this weird network quirk where it makes it basically impossible to edit my own posts.

But regardless of the definition of "maturity," I assume that loser meant it as sort of a mental quality, all of which are dependent on "physical trappings."

[icycalm]

Yeah, a little fact which makes Kurzweil's views concerning quality of life and immortality seem even more naive. Whatever maturity is, it is certainly linked to the aging process he so longs to destroy, without which most of the wonderful, and wonderfully complicated, phenomenology of our mental processes would simply not exist. We'd end up being more like Greek gods than anything else: capricious, superficial, and eternally childish.

I mean I realize it sounds fun now, but with a little imagination one could see what an unbearable situation it would be in practice in the long term.

[JT]

I took an AI class once. Although it was a Computer Science course, the class centered around philosophy with a focus on Wittgenstein. We only wrote one computer program, as the course's final project. At semester's end, one student even derisively remarked that he didn't know he was signing up for a philosophy class.

During the last lecture of the course, the instructor espoused an opinion that it would be sort of pointless to use people as a model for what artificial intelligence should be. Or as Dijkstra put it:

The effort of using machines to mimic the human mind has always struck me as rather silly: I'd rather use them to mimic something better.

[icycalm]

Never heard of this Dijkstra fellow before. He sounds like a great guy:

EWDs and writing by hand

Dijkstra was known for his habit of carefully composing manuscripts with his fountain pen. The manuscripts are called EWDs, since Dijkstra numbered them with EWD as prefix. Dijkstra would distribute photocopies of a new EWD among his colleagues; as many recipients photocopied and forwarded their copy, the EWDs spread throughout the international computer science community. The topics were mainly computer science and mathematics, but also included trip reports, letters, and speeches. More than 1300 EWDs have since been scanned, with a growing number also transcribed to facilitate search, and are available online at the Dijkstra archive of the University of Texas[2].

One of Dijkstra's sidelines was serving as Chairman of the Board of the fictional Mathematics Inc., a company that he imagined having commercialized the production of mathematical theorems in the same way that software companies had commercialized the production of computer programs. He invented a number of activities and challenges of Mathematics Inc. and documented them in several papers in the EWD series. The imaginary company had produced a proof of the Riemann Hypothesis but then had great difficulties collecting royalties from mathematicians who had proved results assuming the Riemann Hypothesis. The proof itself was a trade secret (EWD 475). Many of the company's proofs were rushed out the door and then much of the company's effort had to be spent on maintenance (EWD 539). A more successful effort was the Standard Proof for Pythagoras' Theorem, that replaced the more than 100 incompatible existing proofs (EWD427). Dijkstra described Mathematics Inc. as "the most exciting and most miserable business ever conceived" (EWD475). He claimed that by 1974 his fictional company was the world's leading mathematical industry with more than 75 percent of the world market (EWD443).[3]

Having invented much of the technology of software, Dijkstra eschewed the use of computers in his own work for many decades. Almost all EWDs appearing after 1972 were hand-written. Even after he succumbed to his UT colleagues’ encouragement and acquired a Macintosh computer, he used it only for e-mail and for browsing the World Wide Web.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsger_Dijkstra

[nicolas]

___

[loser]

Thanks a lot for the copious feedback -- and for not banning me, lol. I also appreciate the quotes from philosophers, which I have always considered to be some of the best material on this site. At first I found it somewhat painful to have my beliefs criticized in public, but now I have come to enjoy the sense of learning that ensues from such scrutiny.

If my reading of this thread is correct, the consensus seems to be that the singularity is possible -- that is, we can't prove that it's impossible. But the questions of Searle's "causal powers", the link between aging and maturity, and AI suicide, remain unanswered to my satisfaction. Can we be quite sure that an AI or an augmented human cannot exhibit "causal powers" or increasing maturity? I'll have to do some serious reading on these subjects. I'm also considering beginning the habit of reading some philosophy on a weekly basis, though sadly the local library isn't particularly well stocked in that department. Wittgenstein's and Baudrillard's writings seem particularly interesting to me, though also the hardest to understand. I'm not confident that I have any grasp of the issues they are trying to explain.

There is a book out called "Are we spiritual machines" where Searle and Kurzweil debate consciousness. Searle maintains that consciousness can only arise from a biological process, while Kurzweil postulates that it could equally well arise from an electronic process of similar scope. Kurzweil believes that advanced AI will claim that it is conscious in the same way that present-day humans do, but admits that this is not a philosophical argument about consciousness. To the best of my knowledge, the issue has not yet been satisfactorily resolved, and perhaps never will: whether one believes Searle's view or Kurzweil's, a leap of faith is needed. This question is key to the issue of mind uploading: what if you dispose of the original wetware human and the mind copy won't inherit its consciousness?

The issue of AI suicide is of great personal importance to me. Evo, I'd love to hear the names of some of those science fiction stories that discuss it. I did several Google searches but, strangely, nothing came up. Icy's point that the lack of discussion of AI suicide implies shortcomings on part of the authorities is well taken. However, even if advanced AI eventually decided to commit suicide, it could still have a profound impact on society by allowing non-augmented humans to utilize its copious inventions in areas such as medicine, transportation and communications. This with the assumption that it would not want to kill the non-augmented humans.

How would Stephen Hawking commit suicide? It would have to be an assisted suicide. But I did not speculate as to whether or not he'd commit suicide; I was talking about whether or not he finds life worth living. When I talked about life being meaningful, I meant the meaning that one personally assigns to it. It is interesting to see McCarthy and Dijkstra being brought up in this forum; I was familiar with both from other contexts. I recommend watching the documentary "Discipline in Thought".

I think I will stop posting in this thread for now, since I don't think I have anything more to contribute. Thank you all for making me think more critically.

[icycalm]

Those were some very helpful links, nicolas, thanks.

I also appreciate the quotes from philosophers, which I have always considered to be some of the best material on this site.

They obviously are. It couldn't possibly be otherwise. In fact they are not merely the best material on this site: they are the best material on this planet.

If my reading of this thread is correct, the consensus seems to be that the singularity is possible -- that is, we can't prove that it's impossible. But the questions of Searle's "causal powers", the link between aging and maturity, and AI suicide, remain unanswered to my satisfaction. Can we be quite sure that an AI or an augmented human cannot exhibit "causal powers" or increasing maturity?

Oh, I am sure it can. But it would have to be simulated causal powers, simulated maturity. Not faked -- simulated. And what is simulation?

By crossing into a space whose curvature is no longer that of the real, nor that of truth, the era of simulation is inaugurated by a liquidation of all referentials -- worse: with their artificial resurrection in the systems of signs, a material more malleable than meaning, in that it lends itself to all systems of equivalences, to all binary oppositions, to all combinatory algebra. It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real, that is to say of an operation of deterring every real process via its operational double, a programmatic, metastable, perfectly descriptive machine that offers all the signs of the real and short-circuits all its vicissitudes. Never again will the real have the chance to produce itself -- such is the vital function in a system of death, or rather of anticipated resurrection, that no longer even gives the event of death a chance. A hyperreal henceforth sheltered from the imaginary, and from any distinction between the real and the imaginary, leaving room only for the orbital recurrence of models and for the simulated generation of differences.

I realize it is a very difficult passage, but I have bolded the key points for you. It is from Baudrillard's essay "Simulations", the story of which is partly related here, and which was later included in the collection of essays titled "Simulacra and Simulation", an essential text for anyone wishing to understand what videogames are all about:

http://books.google.com/books?id=9Z9biH ... ry_r&cad=0

Wittgenstein's and Baudrillard's writings seem particularly interesting to me, though also the hardest to understand. I'm not confident that I have any grasp of the issues they are trying to explain.

You need to start with Nietzsche, as I have explained here. There is really no other way. Most of Nietzsche is perfectly comprehensible, and the few parts that aren't turn out -- surprise, surprise -- to be the ones dealt with by Wittgenstein and Baudrillard. But you need to start at the beginning. You may still end up not understanding (like, say, Kurzweil, Hawking, Gates, and most other human beings), but that is beyond your control. I explain why in the first few pages of my book. The idea is that a person's level of intelligence is not just dependent on the capacity of his brain (as Searle more or less says) but also on the capacities of the rest of his body. To give an example. Both squirrels and hawks have brains that function much like ours, and are therefore intelligent animals. But a squirrel could never understand what it feels like to fly, no matter how many books by Nietzsche or Baudrillard you gave it to read. The hawk, on the other hand, could probably understand the squirrel with a bit of imagination, if it really wanted to.

There is a book out called "Are we spiritual machines" where Searle and Kurzweil debate consciousness. Searle maintains that consciousness can only arise from a biological process, while Kurzweil postulates that it could equally well arise from an electronic process of similar scope. Kurzweil believes that advanced AI will claim that it is conscious in the same way that present-day humans do, but admits that this is not a philosophical argument about consciousness. To the best of my knowledge, the issue has not yet been satisfactorily resolved, and perhaps never will: whether one believes Searle's view or Kurzweil's, a leap of faith is needed.

If you manage to understand the distinction between reality and simulation, you will also understand that this whole issue is a largely unimportant one. Why should anyone really lose any sleep over this? Can consciousness equally well arise from an "electronic" and a "biological" process? It's all the same in the end -- even Philip K. Dick understood this, and he was no philosopher. You won't find Baudrillard wasting his brainpower trying to figure this one little detail out, because he is smart enough to see that -- in the large scheme of things, which is what interests him -- it doesn't matter.

This question is key to the issue of mind uploading: what if you dispose of the original wetware human and the mind copy won't inherit its consciousness?

If you could only see how pathetic these kinds of questions seem to real philosophers. Do you know what lies behind this question? Fear. The fear of geriatric scientists longing for immortality. But we play games. We know that immortality has nothing to offer us. It would degrade the game.

However, even if advanced AI eventually decided to commit suicide, it could still have a profound impact on society by allowing non-augmented humans to utilize its copious inventions in areas such as medicine, transportation and communications.

"Inventions in medicine, transportation and communications", lol. With a view to "improving" mankind's quality of life, no doubt. Here, have some more philosophy:

To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities - I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not - that one endures.

You want, if possible - and there is no more insane "if possible" - to abolish suffering. And we? It really seems that we would rather have it higher and worse than ever. Well-being as you understand it - that is no goal, that seems to us an end, a state that soon makes man ridiculous and contemptible - that makes his destruction desirable. The discipline of suffering, of great suffering - do you not know that only this discipline has created all enhancements of man so far?

I do not point to the evil and pain of existence with the finger of reproach, but rather entertain the hope that life may one day become more evil and more full of suffering than it has ever been.

If we are philosophers, we Hyperboreans, it seems in any case that we are so differently from how one erstwhile was a philosopher. We are absolutely no moralists... We don't believe our ears when we hear them speak, all these erstwhile ones. "Here is the way to happiness" -- with that every one of them jumps toward us, with a recipe in their hands and with unction in their hieratic mouths. "But what do we care about happiness?" -- we ask, completely astonished. "Here is the way to happiness", they continue, these holy scream-devils: "and this here is virtue, the new way to happiness!"... But we ask you, Sirs! What do we at all care about your virtue! For what do the likes of us then step aside, become philosophers, become rhinos, become cave bears, become ghosts? Is it not in order to be rid of virtue and happiness? -- We are by nature much too happy, much too virtuous, to not find a small temptation in becoming philosophers: that is to say immoralists and adventurers... We have a personal curiosity about the labyrinth, we endeavour to make the acquaintance of Mr. Minotaur, of whom people say that he is dangerous: what does your way up matter to us? And your rope that leads out? that leads to happiness and virtue? that leads to you, I fear... You want to save us with your rope? -- And we, we implore you to hang yourselves with it!...

[EightEyes]

So, let me see if I've got this straight... Immortality would do to life what credit-feeding does to videogames?

[JoshF]

I think we already have enough tools to destroy civilization without adding immortality to the mix.

[icycalm]

Destroying civilization might not be a bad balancing idea... Here are some of Nietzsche's notes on the subject:

Decadence itself is nothing to be fought: it is absolutely necessary and belongs to every age and every people. What should be fought vigorously is the contagion of the healthy parts of the organism.

Is this being done? The opposite is done. Precisely that is attempted in the name of humanity.

How are the supreme values held so far, related to this basic biological question? Philosophy, religion, morality, art, etc.

(The cure: e.g., militarism, beginning with Napoleon who considered civilization his natural enemy.)

Fundamental instinctive principle of all philosophers and historians and psychologists: everything of value in man, art, history, science, religion, technology must be proved to be of moral value, morally conditioned, in aim, means and outcome. Everything understood in the light of the supreme value: e.g., Rousseau's question concerning civilization: "Does man become better through it?" -- an amusing question, since the reverse is obvious and is precisely that which speaks in favor of civilization.

The victorious and unbridled: their depressive influence on the value of the desires. It was the dreadful barbarism of custom that, especially in the Middle Ages, compelled the creation of a veritable "league of virtue" -- together with an equally dreadful exaggeration of that which constitutes the value of man. Struggling "civilization" (taming) needs every kind of irons and torture to maintain itself against terribleness and beast-of-prey natures.

The revolution made Napoleon possible: that is its justification. For the sake of a similar prize one would have to desire the anarchical collapse of our entire civilization. Napoleon made nationalism possible: that is its excuse.

...

So, let me see if I've got this straight... Immortality would do to life what credit-feeding does to videogames?

Yeah, and that's a train of thought which I am pursuing in the book. It leads to truly astonishing (and off-topic for this thread) insights...