happiness, mortality

[Brian Atkins]

Dave Long wrote:
> 
> > No human can do that or ever has. They have conveyed blunt, low-res
> > approximations of less than 1% of their experiences that are interpreted
> > differently by everyone who reads it.
> 
> What does any of this have to do
> with happiness?  One is happy, or
> unhappy, in the present.  How can
> anything in the future (passing
> on the bits, giving up the ghost)
> be the only influence on one's
> current happiness?

I'm not disputing that.

What I'm trying to point out is that seeking happiness should not be
your supergoal. Many people claim if you ask them what their overall
life-goal is that they want to achieve happiness/lead a full life/etc.
You have to take it a step further and also achieve immortality, otherwise
the seeking of happiness is completely pointless in the LONG TERM.

Like I said to Chuck, in the 1800s this whole thread would itself be
pretty pointless. But that argument no longer applies at our current
stage of history. It's important for people to realize that they finally
have alternatives, and that those alternatives affect their goal systems
in important ways.
-- 
Brian Atkins
Director, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
http://www.singinst.org/