40 replies to this topic

[Bruce Klein]

Anders said:

It might turn out that without developing the right mindset life extension will not improve life quality, or will even fail (people with ennui doesn't take care of themselves or might decide to end their lives). What ways of thinking promotes zest for life? How can we help people overcome too low biological setpoints of their mood?

Albert Einstein once said, "The unleased power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." (New Your Times, May 25 1946)

And, as the saying goes - guns don't kill people, people kill people.

While we've yet to blow ourselves up, Einstein's message holds similar urgency today with Nanotech already here and Unfriendly AI a real possibility. The chance is great that humans will one day find more effective ways to leverage anger. Thus, it may prove helpful focus energy into developing mood altering drugs. Such drugs may mitigate future catastrophe by helping a large number of people to elevate depressed moods.

Actually, I think the development of sustainable mood enhancing products to be a relatively easy assignment. Crude yet somewhat effective mood enhancing drugs are already found in products like Prozac, Zolof, and Remeron. Set points in happiness are being elevated in people already.

Stephen Braun writes in "The Science of Happiness - Unlocking the Mysteries of Mood" (2000) that the "pharmacological Calvinism is, indeed, crumbling" - meaning we are seeing more use of mood enhancing drugs because they are working.

Braun says, "These drugs can alter the happiness set point-at least for a minority of users- in helpful ways, and often make that adjustment with a minimal of side effects. In short, when they work well, they are true happiness enhancer." (p53)

In answer to Anders' question about life extension and how we can help, I think we can be effective by introducing life extension and anti-aging to a wider audience by promoting proactive events and prizes. Currently underway is the Methuselah Mouse Prize: http://www.methuselahmouse.org/ - other ideas are to create a walk for life, walk to cure aging or a lottery for longevity.... we need more ideas!

As Ben Best once said, we need to become better suicide councilors.

[David]

BJ, I'm not really sure that drugs are the answer. One of the biggest improvements people can make in their mood states is to DECIDE to be happy. Seems so simple, but it's a good place to start. Unfortunately too many of us get a reward of some kind, a payoff if you will, for being unhappy.

[Bruce Klein]

David.. I would tend to agree but how many humans 'decide' to go on a diet, quit smoking, stop getting upset.. and fail?

And one can take a more mundane measure of happiness.. and now just 'decide' to be happy.. does it work?

I guess what I'm saying that while we may have a very clear idea of what's best for us.. the reality is that our actions fall far short.

I look to artificially enhance mood with drugs just as we artificially enhance our eyesight with glasses.

Of course, drugs are not the total answer or 'soma', but it could be just the boost needed to ensure decision leads to action.

[Mind]

Efforts as simple as a change in diet and a little more exercise can improve mood also. The high sugar/carb, low fat diet that many people maintain probably adds to their depression. People who are more fit would be more likely to affect positive change than would a couch potato.

[chubtoad]

Mood enhancing drugs could certainly lead to better decisions. However, I don't know if a constant fealing of euphoria will be very benificial. As far as immortality goes I think one of the most useful emotions will be fear, maybe not by the scientists but certainly by the public who's demand will be key in the advances in research. Overall though I'm sure mood enhancing drugs will be worthwhile.

[reason]

Mind: Efforts as simple as a change in diet and a little more exercise can improve mood also. The high sugar/carb, low fat diet that many people maintain probably adds to their depression. People who are more fit would be more likely to affect positive change than would a couch potato.

I'd agree with that -- and cutting out the processed sugars does make an enormous difference to depression, mood and mental stability.

Reason
Founder, Longevity Meme
reason@longevitymeme.org
http://www.longevitymeme.org

[David]

"And one can take a more mundane measure of happiness.. and now just 'decide' to be happy.. does it work?"

In a nutshell, YES! People who set out to do something like quit smoking, or diet, or be happier, and fail, make up excuses for their actions. I believe that the great psychological leap forward of the 21st century will be the re-empowerment of each and very one of us. For too long we have stumbled around in the dark, led off the personal empowerment track by the Freudian apparatus. (Tell me about your mother... what a load of crap!) We are going to slowly come to the realization that the past has no power over us. You personally have power over yourself! But only if you decide to make it so!

To put it in words you may understand a little better, its emotional economic rationalism. Costs VS rewards. What will it cost the smoker to give up smoking? What will be the rewards? Do the rewards hang heavier on the emotional economic rationalism scale?

Behaviorism tells us that the likely-hood of a behaviour happening and then rehappening will be higher if the behaviour is followed by some kind of a reward. The smoker gets a hit of nicotine. The smoker gets to thumb their nose at the world. The smoker is able to identify with others of a like mindset, other smokers, and become part of their in-group, and for many of them THIS MAY BE THE ONE THING THEY HAVE IN COMMON WITH ANYONE else in the world. [huh] (I gave up drinking at the age of 21 and realized, to my horror, that I had absolutely nothing in common with any of the people I knew, and I have had heroin addicts tell me the same thing).

All of these 'rewards' are immediate. The cost of smoking; a painfull death, gasping for air, and knowing that it will never get any better, that you are eventually going to drown in your own fluids, is a distant, inconceivable impossibility. (Nobody believes it will happen to them!) Not to mention that the inconceivable possibility is preached at one by a member of a social class that the smoker doesn't like, belong to, or respect (The majority of smoking behaviour comes from the working and underclass of society, here in Australia, at least).

BJ, don't get the wrong idea, I know drugs have their place in the world, but don't sell yourself short. Your mind is far more powerful than anything you can smoke inject or ingest.

(Soap box time!) I think the practice of GP's handing out mood and mind altering drugs in immoral. Sure, a particular drug for a particular individual might be necessary to get them over a rough patch, but it needs to be in conjunction with councelling via someone skilled and trained in the particular area the person needs.

BTW, I'm not an ignorant fool, I know EXACTLY what extacy, speed, cocain, heroine and pot can do. I am after all a heavy metal musician going through a career change...

Your happiness is your responsibility, not some chemicals.

Edited by David, 18 October 2003 - 07:24 AM.

[David]

Strewth! I am a boring old fart, arn't I? [lol]

[Bruce Klein]

Yeah you are

To be clear, I'm against the use of drugs to excape reality.

I'm for using drugs to help people sharpen their focus and be more productive and comfortable with themselves.

David, maybe you're right.. maybe we can just keep beating the drum... that might be somewhat effective over time... and that may be part of the equations to help society... but, I think we can.. and already have been successful (Prozac, etc.) in creating safe and effective mood improving drugs.

[David]

Safe and effective mood enhancing drugs are just like crutches. What I'm proposing (and working towards) is to find ways to empower people to walk and run effectively, so they don't NEED crutches.

"The human organism is best reinforced by being effective." (Skinner, 1964)

"If you have to take a drug to focus on something, perhaps you shouldn't focus on it!" (Fillmore, 2003) [huh]

[theimmortalist]

Some emotional scars run deep and IMO telling someone to put on a happy face in the throes of depression and pain is a little naive. If a mother lost her child wouldn't it be a tad unrealistic to say "don't worry be happy?"

[John Doe]

BJKlein,

I am a big fan of The Hedonistic Imperative and Zoloft (which I am about to start taking again).

[Bruce Klein]

Same here John,

This may be of interest...




David Pearce is a British visionary who promotes the abolition of suffering in all sentient life.

Pearce's views are most prominently presented in The Hedonistic Imperative, a manifesto in which he outlines how genetic engineering and nanotechnology will ultimately, and permanently, eliminate all forms of aversive experience.

Pearce was co-founder (with Nick Bostrom) of the World Transhumanist Association.

http://en.wikipedia....ki/David_Pearce

[John Doe]

I have already seen that.

Pearce has also written an excellent review of Brave New World and a guide to good drugs.

[serenity]

I would like to say something about the use of drugs to BE HAPPY...been there, done that. Prozac, Zoloft, (X, cocaine, heroine etc.) for those who use it say they are happy until they try to stop using the drug....when they look in retrospect, they realize that they have been considerably numbed to the EFFECT of what was going on around them, tending to comment on the fact that it didn't REALLY make them happy, rather manic in coming down and dealing with the basic problem ('straight') anyway was the only real way to solve the problem. Prozac is awful for the sex drive anyway, nor do I think it is safe. Exercise, diet, and healthy (positive) thinking is a huge key towards self-realization:) I would like to think that anything more than short term use of drugs to help elevate one's mood will eventially be commonplace~What happened to humans in general? It seems like more and more are trying to find themselves through taking a pill to make it alright~for me it was the big lie.....I hope noone thinks I am judging as it is not my place to....I will say that happiness comes from within not from without~Peace folks~I'm very happy and have been for several years, through using natural methods [thumb]

[David]

"Some emotional scars run deep and IMO telling someone to put on a happy face in the throes of depression and pain is a little naive. If a mother lost her child wouldn't it be a tad unrealistic to say "don't worry be happy?"" theimmortalist.

I agree. There is a place for drugs. Perhaps to get someone in this situation through a rough spot. However, doing it in conjunction with properly researched and trained therapy is a must. I hope John Doe is talking to someone skilled to try to get to the root of the problem, and not just covering up the wound (if there is one, sometimes there isn't) with substances.

I think building ones emotional intelligence is as important (possibly even more so!) than teaching them to read and write.

Heh, even I eat chocolate.... still!

David

[bacopa]

yes I'm with Pearce and BJ on this one. I think we will kill ourselve off if we continue on the so called trend of 'progress.' When in reality progress is only going to hurt us if we don't spend more time on advancing our mood states. Excercise is a great step but it won't help completely.

How can we advance ourselves to post human status with nano-enhanced brains if we don't account for mood? Already we have monkey brains that can only tolerate so much emotional change. I think we're ready to develop the next generation of mood enhancing drugs. Prozac and Zoloft are not effective enough. We need specific targeted drugs for specific regions of the brain.

Finally we HAVE to change the stupid stupid mindset of most ignoramouses in this country and get them to start thinking about compassion and what it means to be a good and ETHICAL human being, instead of a cowardly redneck which most people are these days. Yes MINDSET how the heck can we change our mindsets with distractions like violence on television and idiots out in the world? How's your average joe constuction worker going to develop a positive mindset when his life consists of boring menial tasks? Are people going to stop speeding angrily down city streets or highways just by developing a 'happy' attitude? Obviously NOT or it wouldn't be happening today. The sixties free to be you and me amounted to a load of crap, because somehow every positive ideal from that era is completely ignored in today's capitalistic, greed fueled dog eat dog world.

I would love to see states of mind where we don't feel the need to just do something to keep ourselves occupied. I would love to get to a point evolutionarily where we can finally become accountable for rational thought and not just respond to our inate animal instints. That's why I think guys like Kurzweil are the real geniuses because they care about the human mind and how it responds to things like the law of accelerating returns. How do our animal psyches stand up to a world of technological change that we might not be ready to handle with our unenhanced brains?

We need to get to the next level of post humanity and get the nano devices that will allow us to think much faster and I'm hoping with more fluidity of thought not so uneven as it is now. Our moods seem to drastically effect our rational decisions. Emotion detaches us from rationality and true logical processing. We need to learn more intelligent forms of emotion to go along with our future brains. Thing is how are we going to do this. And will people forget to account for the vast importance of emotion in the process? By the way Pearce appears to be a renegade genius to come up with his manifesto one wonders why others haven't thought along the same lines?

[PaulH]

Wow, fantastic discussion all around! I've been saying the same thing for over a decade now. Moods, and emotional sanity are of paramount importance as we ride this wave of accelerating returns into the cosmos.

I think you might find my new blog hits this right on the nail

Future Hi - Celebrating the Rebirth of Psychedelic Futurism

[David]

I agree to a point. However the human nervous system is designed to alert us to danger in a myriad of ways. One of those ways is through pain. One type of pain is emotional.

I agree that we must be able to deaden pain for things like operations, and pain relief for accidents. In addition, we need to be able to alleviate emotional pain from time to time through drugs.

We do however need to be aware of the types of stimulus that can cause the pain in the first place. If you are habitually deadened to pain through a drug, a huge part of your defence systems is rendered inoperative.

Wouldn't it be irresponsible to keep oneself in a state where something (that many believe can break down many of the body's defences) is hidden behind a cloud of drugs? The pain isn't gone, its just screened from our consciousness. The emotional pain one feels is often a symptom of greater problems.

We don't yet know if it's the emotional pain that physically damages us, or the stimulus causing the pain, whether that be a lost child, a lost love, or a bad grade in an exam.

The fact of the matter is that we need pain, physical and emotional. It tells us that something is wrong. Take notice of what is causing you pain, deaden it with drugs by all means (under qualified supervision of course!) but make sure you then tend to what is causing the pain. The thing that is causing you pain just might be shortening your life! And that's not on!

Dave

[bacopa]

Right right that's obvious, no offense, what needs to happen is a way for us to turn off the emotional pain but keep on our awareness and understanding of what it is that is causing the pain.

People like Pearce and it sounds like Planetp are envisioning ways for us to transcend our humble Darwinian roots and evolve via nanotech and bio-enhancemnet to levels of cognition unfathomable now in our simplistic carbon based neuronal mindsets.

I haven't read the whole manifesto but I think he mentioned that we'll be able to one day at will turn off pain without it interferring at all with our survival

PlanetP your blog looks amazing!

    No, the problem is getting the hyper-spiritual dimensional "groove-love" communicated to the hyper-computational transhumanists "atheists" who haven't experienced such things yet. I think communicating this message is paramount, because it is these hyper-computationalist’s who are taking over the reigns of science and technological progress as we approach greater-than-human intelligence and decentralizing bio/nanotechnology.

good point P I think the strict empiricists as you say look down on the spriitual side of our humanity which is too bad because there is nothing that says imagination, creativity, 'fun' is any less important than computation and logic.

[PaulH]

Thanks Dfowler! I really appreciate it. The future is looking brighter every day. Now if only we can get enough people to see that, we might all have a chance of making it.

I announced Future Hi only two days ago, and now I'm getting over 500 visitors an hour! Mentions by some A-list bloggers, and getting in the top 50 on Blogdex is certainly helping with the rapid rise to popularity. Also, a mention on Metafilter this afternoon really pushed the traffic up.

I am looking for contributors, anyone intersting in coming on board?

[David]

dfowler, I must be misreading you.

What you seem to be saying is that a construction worker (which I was for a substantial portion of my life) should take drugs to alleviate his/her boredom instead of realising that this job isn't for them and taking steps to get out of the game?

I don't see violence on television as a problem, I see people who see violence on television as a problem but refuse to watch something else as the problem. Don't like it? Turn it off! If enough of us do, producers will get the message and stop.

I never, ever meet idiots. Perhaps its because I expect not to. I project to everyone that I meet that I believe that they are wonderful, worthwhile people, and am invariably rewarded by them being that way. It's called a self fulfilling prophesy. When I do meet someone behaving "idiotically" I look to the situation they are going through for the reasons for their actions. Most of the time there is an external argument to stupidity.

Emotional Intelligence is real, it can be measured. What's more important, it can be taught!

Dave

[PaulH]

Dave,

I 100% agree with you that Emotional Intelligence can be taught - it is what I do for a living. :-)

Here is our corporate website: http://www.vivation.com/

And here is my quick-n-dirty business page with my own description of the process that has increased my own EQ immeasurably, and that of the people I teach: http://www.vivepros.com/

[bacopa]

Interesting business of happiness you're involved in I think that's great....I hope it's working out for you.

I would be interested in helping you depending on what you had in mind.

I didn't mean to bash contsruction workers implying their idiots I was simply saying that most people don't seem to be able to keep their own autonomy like we all wish. Hopefully one day further advances in drugs and technology will lift us into a 'higher' state of being

[PaulH]

good point P I think the strict empiricists as you say look down on the spriitual side of our humanity which is too bad because there is nothing that says imagination, creativity, 'fun' is any less important than computation and logic.

Exactly! My point is it just doesn't matter what the nature of these states are. It doesn't matter whether you are an empirical athiest, or a religious zealot. Quoting myself from the site,

For the purposes of this site, it doesn't matter what the answer is. What matters is that these transcendent states are valid in themselves and what we do with them. Who cares whether such sublime experiences are arbitrary brain states produced by a flood of seratonin and endorphins or something else? As Hans Moravec has repeated often, simulated experience is for all philosophical purposes as real as non-simulated experience. And besides, how could we tell the difference? How do we know we are currently not in some kind of hyper-advanced "matrix" simulation or in the mind of a much greater entity?

[David]

Had a quick look at your page. I like it! Have to go to a lecture in a couple of mins, so I'll check the rest out when I have more time.

Just to shorten my reading time, has your program been scientifically evaluated by an independent body? If so, have the results been written up in any reputable journals that I might be able to investigate? Could you direct me to them? I try to keep an open mind, but I like to be thorough in my evaluative processes. I'm sure you understand!

David

[PaulH]

David,

There are now over 100,000 people around the world who have learned it, and if you want I can put you in touch with some of them. We have not been written up in any "reputable" journal, as academic psychologist won't touch anything related to breathing with a ten-foot pole. However, we have taught lots of practicing psychologist who swear by it. Just let me know, and I can put you in touch with one of them.

[David]

Arn't you glad the current batch of psychology students (me for example) have open minds? Strange, but we HAVE been taught some breathing techniques.

One way to get recognition for your techniques would be to harrass a reputable university till they research your claims to make you go away. If your techniques work as well as you say, there could be IMPLICATIONS!

Dave

[PaulH]

Hi Dave,

I tried. I even took my work to the psychologist Steven Hayes (a very hip dude) whose work most closely emulates what we do, but which is still within the traditional paradigm of psychotherapy. He teaches here at the local University of Nevada Reno. He has become internationally recognized for his work and now has a website for it here:

http://www.acceptanc...enttherapy.com/

He told me he wouldn't touch what I teach with a 10-foot pole, because he would tarnish his reputation, even though he hinted to me (obliquely) that Vivation, from what he knows about it, is completely consistent with his theories.

Oh well.

So you're a budding psychologist? Me too! I just applied at the Grad School here at UNR where Steven Hayes is the department head. I'm looking to become a therapist, but who is willing to use these tools, including breathing and deep body work, which I believe is the most substantive way to resolve emotional armouring. (Yes, you could say I am a neo-Reichian). [lol]

[hughbristic]

I think the ability to reliably alter our state of consciousness to be more loving is essential to our survival as a species. In another 50 years at the outside, a 10 year old in biology lab will probably have the tools to wipe out all life on Earth. I doubt any system of checks and balances will be able to protect us. What is needed is a change of heart so that people desire to do the good. We no longer need the fear, sadness, and hatred that at one time served an adaptive purpose. I think in our modern protected world we could do well enough with a substance that allowed us to discriminate between good and better, instead of aweful and bearable. Our technology and social institutions have outstripped the ability of evolution's slow hand to keep up. I see something like MDMA (reformulated to be safer and longer lasting) as being the most likely tool we have to save ourselves from extinction. The main thing holding us back is our puritanism. If willpower and social engineering were enough to change our natures, why aren't we better than we are? Let's give chemistry a chance. What is wrong with feeling love, no matter the source?

Hugh