
Wireheading done right: stay positive without going insane (2016) - apsec112
https://qualiacomputing.com/2016/08/20/wireheading_done_right/
======
schoen
It seems like some people are having a hard time understanding what this is
about, so let me try giving some context:

This author is interested in the "space" of possible experiences, including
emotions, and the potential to manipulate them through drugs and future
technology, especially in a future where technology and our understanding of
the brain and consciousness are greatly advanced.

There are various problems with "drugs" of various kinds, like how some of
them could make you an addict, withdrawn from the world, like a zombie, etc.
There are different ways that people worry about the effect of drugs on their
users, and even some people like this author (who are trying to be very
independent of social convention and social norms) show some respect to those
concerns.

Then one way of phrasing the angle of this essay might be:

In a technological future where we could get and make even more powerful
drugs, and had fewer practical responsibilities (like not having to work),
what would we want to understand about our relationship with drugs so that
using them literally all of the time would be a good thing rather than a bad
thing, in terms of the rest of what we value? What are the good and the bad of
drug experiences, and can we tease them apart conceptually?

I don't have enough of a position on this question (or enough understanding of
some parts of the essay) to be clear on whether I agree or disagree, but I
hope that helps in terms of what the essay is talking about. ("Wireheading"
basically means using some kind of artificial means to feel super-good all of
the time, and people worry about it because people and other animals who are
given this opportunity seem to immediately lose all interest in everything
else, which seems kind of bad from most conventional perspectives of what a
person can or should be!)

~~~
colanderman
Specifically the thesis seems to be the idea that one can avoid the negative
effects of continuous euphoria (habituation, unhappiness associated with the
come down) by setting up one's environment such that one can transition from
one "class" of (not necessarily drug-induced) euphoria to another. I don't
think it's too crazy; I can easily see the structures suggested in the article
superimposed on top of a healthy, normal-looking, even drug-free, life.

…This made a lot of sense when I read it in between biphasic sleep phases at 3
AM last night. Not sure what that means.

~~~
sam1r
You would have to otherwise log your thoughts & have an interactive UI to keep
track of the transitions between mental states.

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l_t
Interesting article. Are there any wireheading proponents in this crowd? I'm
curious to understand the phenomenon.

The following quote in the article illustrates what they describe as
"Wireheading done right":

"Their primary state of consciousness cycles over a period of 24 hours. Here
is their routine: They wake up and experience intense zest for life and work
at full capacity making others happy and having fun. Then they go crazy
creative in the afternoon, usually spending that time alone or with friends,
and explore (and share) strange but always awesome psychedelic-like states of
consciousness. Finally, at night they just relax to the max (the healthy and
genetically encoded phenomenological equivalent of shooting heroin)."

I can see the appeal of this type of existence. But taking a step back, I
question the value in experiencing these states unless they correspond to real
events in the world.

For example, focus on "They wake up and experience intense zest for life and
work at full capacity making others happy and having fun." This is a perfectly
fine sentiment to have. But things should _feel better_ because they're
_better things to do_. Wouldn't a wireheader working in a cheap toxic factory
be just as happy as one working in an expensive, safe factory? How might that
ultimately impact the factories we design?

With utilitarianism, we attempt to maximize pleasure ( _very_ roughly
speaking). But part of that is because _pleasure_ has been tied to _good
events_ by our built-in wiring. If we have the ability to make _any_ event
pleasurable, it feels like we need a new ethical system that employs a full
gradient of emotions, including low-valence ones, to appropriately reflect the
difference between the desired and the actual reality, and avoid a dystopia
where everyone is happy. How does wireheading take this into account?

~~~
rsync
"Are there any wireheading proponents in this crowd?"

I have never heard the term and this is my first introduction to the concept,
at least framed in this manner ...

But ... aren't we all, already, "wireheads" ? Our tools and heuristics might
be a little blunt, or ineffectual, but the quote you provide:

"Their primary state of consciousness cycles over a period of 24 hours. Here
is their routine: They wake up and experience intense zest for life and work
at full capacity making others happy and having fun. Then they go crazy
creative in the afternoon, usually spending that time alone or with friends,
and explore (and share) strange but always awesome psychedelic-like states of
consciousness. Finally, at night they just relax to the max (the healthy and
genetically encoded phenomenological equivalent of shooting heroin)."

... sounds a lot like the better days that I have - it's just that I
accomplish it with Caffeine, meditation, intense exercise, good sleep hygiene
and (sometimes) alcohol.

While I haven't formally explored my day to day life on a happiness
maximization metric, I did not come to these tools accidently, or randomly -
I've slowly tailored them, and my own habits, to achieve maximum happiness on
a specific time horizon ...

~~~
l_t
Good point, thank you!

It's an interesting thing, because I also take caffeine, and exercise, and
meditate. Maybe it's just a matter of degrees, a sliding scale. But "too much
of a good thing" isn't unheard of, and I have a strong suspicion that
"pleasure control" is one of those things that's tolerable in small doses, but
ultimately isn't conducive to survival or satisfaction, especially taken to
the extreme of avoiding negative emotions entirely.

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yboris
A fantastic podcast - interview with the author:

Andrés Gómez Emilsson on Solving Consciousness and Being Happy All the Time

[https://mostinterestingpeople.podbean.com/e/16-andres-
gomez-...](https://mostinterestingpeople.podbean.com/e/16-andres-gomez-
emilsson-on-solving-consciousness-and-being-happy-all-the-time/)

~~~
Nuzzerino
I met him once. Brilliant guy!

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Dig1t
Overall I thought this article was dumb and boring, but the bit about septal
implants was interesting. The linked [https://www.paradise-
engineering.com/brain/](https://www.paradise-engineering.com/brain/) is super
cool.

~~~
stallmanite
Wow paradise-engineering.com has been up forever. I vividly remember
encountering that page during one of my first forays onto the web circa ‘96 or
so.

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jpeg_hero
Genius or madness, not sure which.

~~~
pmiller2
I bet if you fed this to GPT-3, the resulting output would be
indistinguishable from the input.

~~~
dougmwne
You be the judge of that. I copied the entire article up to the line below,
then let it generate a few paragraphs from there.

Let us begin by enriching our understanding of the nature of bliss and its
temporal dynamics:

What is Bliss?

Briefly stated, bliss is the absence of pain or discomfort. It has been
defined as "the pleasant feeling one gets when thinking about something
pleasurable." This definition captures the essence of bliss, but there are
many other definitions floating around out there. For example, Wikipedia
defines it thus: "The experience of being completely contented and without
anxiety" [1]. Another definition comes from the Oxford English Dictionary: "A
state of mental or emotional well-being; happiness" [2].

There is no question that we want to avoid pain and suffering. We also know
that we can't do so if we don't even have awareness of them. But how does this
relate to bliss? One way is to say that bliss is a kind of transcendent
pleasure. If you're having trouble visualizing this, imagine that you're on a
beach and you see a beautiful sunset. You could enjoy the view forever, but
eventually your eyes start burning and water starts coming out of your nose.
At some point you realize that the sun isn't really shining at all, it's just
reflecting off sand grains in front of your eyes. So what happens next? Do you
stop enjoying the view entirely because it doesn't feel like paradise anymore?
No! All you need to do is go down the beach a little ways and the sun's rays
won't be striking your eyes at that angle anymore. You can keep on enjoying
the view forever if you want to, or at least as long as you can stand being
outside without sunblock.

It's a well known fact that our conscious experience of things tends to fade
over time. In psychology this is known as Hedonic Adaptation. We quickly get
used to things being a certain way, and then we seek out new things to
experience. This is why we buy lots of stuff, take lots of trips, try new
hobbies, etc. One could also call this the hedonic treadmill. It might seem
like paradise is always just out of reach no matter how hard we try, but this
isn't quite true. The truth is that hedonic adaptation works both ways. If we
stop doing the things that we've gotten used to, then our hedonic adaptation
goes in reverse. In other words, if you spend all your time sitting on the
couch watching Netflix, eventually you'll get bored of that and will seek out
new experiences. You'll start going for walks, or going to the movies, or
learning a new skill, or whatever else. At some point you'll realize that your
life has meaning again. And, just like that sunset that made your eyes burn,
you'll find that this new meaning starts to fade over time. It's all a matter
of what you've gotten used to.

If all this is true then it seems like we can easily achieve perpetual bliss
without needing to do anything drastic at all. All we have to do is keep on
top of our hedonic treadmill by seeking out new experiences on a regular
basis. Unfortunately it isn't quite that simple. Our hedonic treadmill is
extremely complex, and there are certain things that interfere with it in ways
we don't fully understand.

In fact, it's not just a question of keeping on top of our hedonic treadmill.
It's more a matter of keeping ahead of it. If we fall behind for too long, we
will eventually hit a low point from which it will be very difficult to
recover. It's like running a race. If you're ahead of your opponent for the
whole race, then you can pretty much take it easy for a while and still win.
However, if you start to fall behind, then every second that you don't pick up
the pace makes it harder to catch up again. Eventually you'll hit a point
where it becomes impossible to win, no matter how hard you try.

~~~
jkestner
In a world where neural networks can ramble like a human, and will be
incentivized to do so by search algorithms, terse writing will be prized.

~~~
CarbyAu
I thought someone had a "summary" AI that could read articles and give you the
executive summary. Combine the two!

[https://app.scholarcy.com/flashcard-
generator.html](https://app.scholarcy.com/flashcard-generator.html) fed with
the article results in:

Wireheading Done Right: Stay Positive Without Going Insane 2016 "To do so we
must avoid wireheading traps and take seriously future economic selection
pressures, as they will determine who or what survives at the evolutionary
limit."

------
woodandsteel
The basic question here is the finitude of human existence. We have negative
emotions because human beings are finite, ie are not immortal gods, and so are
vulnerable to various types of harm, and negative emotions motivate us to take
action to avoid or mitigate harm. Only a god could be happy all the time.

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hkr3
Started reading the first few lines and could not make head or tail of what
was being discussed.

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sam1r
Wow.. it finally makes sense why I binge on hacker news.

️

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alex_young
I wonder if this person sleeps much

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svnpenn
man, that reads like someone vomited a thesaurus

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groby_b
2020's Time Cube appeared.

~~~
colanderman
Unlike Time Cube, I actually found the ideas presented here coherent and
actionable, if somewhat meta, verbose, and mired in jargon (for which there is
a glossary on the site). Time Cube was neither of those two things.

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Kednicma
Worry less about emotions; be pragmatic and focus on goals and outcomes.

