> OK, in my original post I was playing agent provocateur. (I hope that's
> permitted here -- I didn't see anything in the FAQ that prohibits it.)
We need that - otherwise this list would quickly succumb to groupthink.
> While evolution may have required pleasure as a response to sustenance and
> sex, I would think transhumanists would want to link pleasure to learning
> and creating.
Yes, I think and feel that it would be very desirable. Although I see no
reason to discard the old pleasures, just to remove the imperative drives
to them (as a Jupiter-brain I might feel pleasure when I optimize my
internal networks, but optimization isn't one of my primary drives).
> Another (related) small project I'm working on is the meaning of life. <g>
> Until we can prove the universe is going to reach a steady-state and is
> eternal, it seems to me we should assume that it is dying. Therefore, the
> purpose of life is to acquire the knowledge and means to prevent it from
> happening.
A good meme. It reminds me of my explanation of the Omega Point theory:
giving the universe a happy ending ("And they lived happily ever after...").
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
nv91-asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/main.html
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y