From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Mon Nov 16 1998 - 20:15:15 MST
Patrick Wilken wrote:
>
> Do you honestly believe living through war makes you live any sort of
> better life? My grandmother and mother lived through the World War II in
> camps in Eastern Europe, my grandfather was shot fighting the Russians as a
> partisan. I can tell you they don't feel they lived a more "real" life
> because of it, and I would love to see you tell my grandmother to her face
> that watching TV would have helped her get out of her cocoon and better
> prepare her for the real world. Please do: I'll sell tickets...
I regret that the human emotional system seems to be designed so that high
levels of stress are needed to really grow up. (Although sometimes this
occurs automatically at age 40.) I don't know that I would recommend doing
this deliberately, but quite a few people, including myself, report that
emotional maturity began after their lives were threatened. Someday,
undoubtedly, we'll bypass this trigger. But it is there.
There's an interesting Dilbert cartoon in which Dilbert thinks, "Sometimen I
feel like I've been faking everything since fourth grade. I wonder if other
people get that feeling." A few days after the crisis had passed, I realized
I would never get that feeling again.
I don't romanticize it or try to explain it in philosophical terms. I
wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find that it reduced to neurochemicals.
So I don't want to hear ten thousand reasons why an ideal world wouldn't work
that way.
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://pobox.com/~sentience/AI_design.temp.html
http://pobox.com/~sentience/sing_analysis.html
Disclaimer: Unless otherwise specified, I'm not telling you
everything I think I know.
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