Science, Technology & the Future | David Pearce - The End of Suffering: Genome Reform and the Future of Sentience @scfu | Uploaded May 2022 | Updated October 2024, 3 hours ago.
Synopsis: No sentient being in the evolutionary history of life has enjoyed good health as defined by the World Health Organization. The founding constitution of the World Health Organization commits the international community to a daringly ambitious conception of health: “a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing”. Health as so conceived is inconsistent with evolution via natural selection. Lifelong good health is inconsistent with a Darwinian genome. Indeed, the vision of the World Health Organization evokes the World Transhumanist Association. Transhumanists aspire to a civilization of superhappiness, superlongevity and superintelligence; but even an architecture of mind based on information-sensitive gradients of bliss cannot yield complete well-being. Post-Darwinian life will be sublime, but “complete” well-being is posthuman – more akin to Buddhist nirvana. So the aim of this talk is twofold. First, I shall explore the therapeutic interventions needed to underwrite the WHO conception of good health for everyone – or rather, a recognisable approximation of lifelong good health. What genes, allelic combinations and metabolic pathways must be targeted to deliver a biohappiness revolution: life based entirely on gradients of well-being? How can we devise a more civilized signalling system for human and nonhuman animal life than gradients of mental and physical pain? Secondly, how can genome reformists shift the Overton window of political discourse in favour of hedonic uplift? How can prospective parents worldwide – and the World Health Organization – be encouraged to embrace genome reform? For only germline engineering can fix the problem of suffering and create a happy biosphere for all sentient beings.
A talk by David Pearce for the Stepping into the Future conference 2022. scifuture.org/events/stepping-into-the-future
A big thanks to Adam James Davies for doing the chapters!
0:00 Introduction/beginning
0:07 The Biohappiness Revolution
1:53 Paradise Engineering: when? How?
3:21 Jo Cameron and anandamide
4:30 World Health Organisation and a hundred-year plan to end suffering
5:34 Intro ends; the live presentation by David Pearce begins…
6:30 Our ancestors on the African Savannah
7:40 The daunting scale of the project ahead
8:07 ‘Flagship’ Chinese CRISPR babies and missed opportunities
9:44 Our ‘volume knobs’ for pain and nonsense mutations
12:20 Physical pain, psychological pain and Jo Cameron
14:10 Questions opening
15:07 Hugo de Garis: what is state-of-the-art within CRISPR and genetic engineering?
18:00 Nick Bostrom’s appearance on Joe Rogan’s show! The need for charismatic leadership within the suffering-abolitionist movement
19:50 Andres Gomez Emilsson: the necessity of enhancing more than one characteristic, for example: intelligence as well as hedonic set-points.
20:28 The pitfalls of enhancing intelligence
23:40 “Life in the Year 3000”, and the likelihood of nuclear war
25:03 Hugo: how ambitious should we be to begin with considering the sheer number of genes in the human genome?
26:05 Cloning super-geniuses like John von Neumann
27:20 The inherent ignorance of Turing Machines and classical digital computers
28:50 Solving the Phenomenal Binding Problem, and obscure disorders of various types rooted in the breakdowns of phenomenal binding.
31:04 Question from ? How do you test if a system has solved the Binding Problem? P-Zombies, et cetera
32:50 Strong emergence is like magic?
33:50 More on the Binding Problem and quantum mind
36:56 An appraisal of Andres and his knowledge about consciousness
37:15 More on genetic engineering, looping back round to Hugo’s last question; gene therapy’s importance role to play in ending suffering
38:29 Another question from ? Can superhappiness ‘naturally’ follow from intelligence enhancement, or vice versa?
40:30 The abolitionist project is already technically feasible for both humans and non-humans - it is not sci-fi!
42:30 successfully engineering super-intelligence might be more of a challenge than even ending suffering!
43:29 Another question from ? Can there be a formal mathematical language for philosophical and metaphysical statements?
45:35 Hugo: did Leibniz think about this problem? (No answer)
46:49 Adam Ford reminds guests and audience of the next presentation set to begin soon
47:33 Adam asks David about the mainstream normalisation of suffering-abolitionism
49:08 Adam asks David about his thoughts on Yuval Noah Harari and his ideas
50:20 Neil asks everyone, “What would it feel like to be Jo Cameron?”
50:50 Anders Sandberg’s ‘ridiculously high’ hedonic set-point, and others with similar ‘conditions’ (see ‘hyperthymia’, for example)
52:55 Andres asks, “is there an ideal state of consciousness?”
56:50 end
Many thanks for tuning in!
Kind regards,
Adam Ford
- Science, Technology & the Future - #SciFuture - scifuture.org
Synopsis: No sentient being in the evolutionary history of life has enjoyed good health as defined by the World Health Organization. The founding constitution of the World Health Organization commits the international community to a daringly ambitious conception of health: “a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing”. Health as so conceived is inconsistent with evolution via natural selection. Lifelong good health is inconsistent with a Darwinian genome. Indeed, the vision of the World Health Organization evokes the World Transhumanist Association. Transhumanists aspire to a civilization of superhappiness, superlongevity and superintelligence; but even an architecture of mind based on information-sensitive gradients of bliss cannot yield complete well-being. Post-Darwinian life will be sublime, but “complete” well-being is posthuman – more akin to Buddhist nirvana. So the aim of this talk is twofold. First, I shall explore the therapeutic interventions needed to underwrite the WHO conception of good health for everyone – or rather, a recognisable approximation of lifelong good health. What genes, allelic combinations and metabolic pathways must be targeted to deliver a biohappiness revolution: life based entirely on gradients of well-being? How can we devise a more civilized signalling system for human and nonhuman animal life than gradients of mental and physical pain? Secondly, how can genome reformists shift the Overton window of political discourse in favour of hedonic uplift? How can prospective parents worldwide – and the World Health Organization – be encouraged to embrace genome reform? For only germline engineering can fix the problem of suffering and create a happy biosphere for all sentient beings.
A talk by David Pearce for the Stepping into the Future conference 2022. scifuture.org/events/stepping-into-the-future
A big thanks to Adam James Davies for doing the chapters!
0:00 Introduction/beginning
0:07 The Biohappiness Revolution
1:53 Paradise Engineering: when? How?
3:21 Jo Cameron and anandamide
4:30 World Health Organisation and a hundred-year plan to end suffering
5:34 Intro ends; the live presentation by David Pearce begins…
6:30 Our ancestors on the African Savannah
7:40 The daunting scale of the project ahead
8:07 ‘Flagship’ Chinese CRISPR babies and missed opportunities
9:44 Our ‘volume knobs’ for pain and nonsense mutations
12:20 Physical pain, psychological pain and Jo Cameron
14:10 Questions opening
15:07 Hugo de Garis: what is state-of-the-art within CRISPR and genetic engineering?
18:00 Nick Bostrom’s appearance on Joe Rogan’s show! The need for charismatic leadership within the suffering-abolitionist movement
19:50 Andres Gomez Emilsson: the necessity of enhancing more than one characteristic, for example: intelligence as well as hedonic set-points.
20:28 The pitfalls of enhancing intelligence
23:40 “Life in the Year 3000”, and the likelihood of nuclear war
25:03 Hugo: how ambitious should we be to begin with considering the sheer number of genes in the human genome?
26:05 Cloning super-geniuses like John von Neumann
27:20 The inherent ignorance of Turing Machines and classical digital computers
28:50 Solving the Phenomenal Binding Problem, and obscure disorders of various types rooted in the breakdowns of phenomenal binding.
31:04 Question from ? How do you test if a system has solved the Binding Problem? P-Zombies, et cetera
32:50 Strong emergence is like magic?
33:50 More on the Binding Problem and quantum mind
36:56 An appraisal of Andres and his knowledge about consciousness
37:15 More on genetic engineering, looping back round to Hugo’s last question; gene therapy’s importance role to play in ending suffering
38:29 Another question from ? Can superhappiness ‘naturally’ follow from intelligence enhancement, or vice versa?
40:30 The abolitionist project is already technically feasible for both humans and non-humans - it is not sci-fi!
42:30 successfully engineering super-intelligence might be more of a challenge than even ending suffering!
43:29 Another question from ? Can there be a formal mathematical language for philosophical and metaphysical statements?
45:35 Hugo: did Leibniz think about this problem? (No answer)
46:49 Adam Ford reminds guests and audience of the next presentation set to begin soon
47:33 Adam asks David about the mainstream normalisation of suffering-abolitionism
49:08 Adam asks David about his thoughts on Yuval Noah Harari and his ideas
50:20 Neil asks everyone, “What would it feel like to be Jo Cameron?”
50:50 Anders Sandberg’s ‘ridiculously high’ hedonic set-point, and others with similar ‘conditions’ (see ‘hyperthymia’, for example)
52:55 Andres asks, “is there an ideal state of consciousness?”
56:50 end
Many thanks for tuning in!
Kind regards,
Adam Ford
- Science, Technology & the Future - #SciFuture - scifuture.org
