From: PaR (par@nu-world.com)
Date: Sat Apr 11 1998 - 12:09:54 MDT
>But homeostasis in some dimensions (like body temperature) doesn't
>imply homeostasis in other dimensions (like aging).
Agreed. (Although I wish aging was homeostatic :-)
>How? In what respect? Obviously memory is not homeostatic, since it is
>constantly updated and changes our behavior. We have certain stable
>conscious states we tend to return to, but are they really long-term
>homeostatic and not just short-term homeostatic?
Sorry, I should have been more specific. I was referring primarily to
long term human emotional states. Clearly not all procesees that comprise
human consciousness are homeostatic.
For example, if you were to take a starving, battered Kurd and provide
him/her with the lifestyle of the "average american" (whatever that is),
the kurd would likely be exstatic - would have an "enhanced" emotional
state of consciousness if you will. However, after some time, what
usually happens is that that persons consciousness returns to "homeostasis"
to a point where s/he would no longer be in that exstatic, elevated state.
(In this example) living this new lifestyle would eventually become "normal"
and blase.
This same phenomenon occurs with people who win the lottery.
Haven't you ever notced, either in yourself or from watching others, that often
the times of greatest pleasure are ones that involve _change_
from one situation to a much better situation. Regardless of how
"good" either of the sitatutions "actually" are.
Hmmm, maybe this could be a small part of why humans either
end up being unhappy (like so many of the "average people" are)
or they end up engaging in extropic persuits.
But this is starting to get onto the topic being covered in the
Re: Definitions for Transhumanism thread.
>I think it can be partially overcome already, since people do change
>from time to time. It is not easy, and obviously it would be a bad
>idea to change constantly since we could not retain ourselves well
I absolutely agree that it can already be overcome to some degree.
Primarily by those people who work at it. Most people do not.
What is wrong with having a highly dynamic personality? I suspect that
this may become quite common in post humans.
Sin,
Jason
Temporary email address: PaR@NU-WORLD.com (new one coming soon!)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:48:53 MST