HBM137: Superhappiness

Here Be Monsters

Here Be Monsters Podcast

Science, Society & Culture, Social Sciences, Personal Journals, Documentary

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2020

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

David Pearce thinks it's possible to end suffering. He’s a philosopher* who studies “hedonic zero”, the state of being which is completely neutral--neither good nor bad. He believes that, despite our momentary joys and sadnesses, most of us have a set point we tend to return to. And that “hedonic set point” falls somewhere on the spectrum of positive to negative.

For David, his set point is negative. He’s always been melancholic and he has depression. He remembers his interest in philosophy sparking in his teenage years, when he felt an outcast. He’d sit in the dark, and listen to pop music and try to figure out how to end the world’s suffering.

He bought a book that introduced him to the concept of wireheading, which is the artificial stimulation of the brain. The wireheads could experience instant bliss with nothing more than electricity. This concept was huge for David: promise of a concrete mechanism to elevate his mood, instantly and without drugs.

Since then David has dedicated his life to understanding hedonic set points and how to manipulate them through physical interventions (like wireheading), gene manipulation (which is arguably already being done with IVF babies), medication, and the eventual transition to post-humanity.

In 1995 David wrote The Hedonistic Imperative. He is the co-founder of Humanity+ (formerly the World Transhumanist Association). He currently sits on their advisory board.

*David Pearce’s views align him with several philosophical movements, most notably transhumanism, negative utilitarianism and soft antinatalism.

Producer: Bethany Denton

Editor: Jeff Emtman

Music: The Black Spot, Circling Lights, Flower Petal Downpour

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	From KCRW, this is Here Be Monsters.
0:07.0	From KCRW, this is Here Be Monsters.
0:18.0	Evolution didn't design us to be happy.
0:35.0	Evolution designed us in the sense to be discontented, always wanting more status, more reproductive opportunities, more wealth, more more, more, more, more. Organisms on the African savanna who sat around counting their blessings,
0:42.0	they weren't the ones who passed on their genes.
0:45.6	So we shouldn't be surprised that humans so much at the time are unhappy and
0:50.2	discontented. It's been genetically adaptive.
0:56.0	I was a melancholy introspective child,
1:00.0	and, you know, a lonely introspective teenager I used to rock to pop music each day in the dark
1:10.0	thinking about the nature of life, reality, thought, suffering and so forth.
1:14.8	Some bookstore I picked up an introduction to neuroscience.
1:24.0	It was just some popular, you know, pop science book.
1:29.4	And I stumbled across this nation of wire heading.
1:34.0	Wire heading is when an electrode is placed in a particular region of your brain
1:41.0	and by pressing a lever is possible for the pleasure centers of the brain to be stimulated.
1:50.0	If an animal had electrodes implanted, the animal in question would compulsively press,
1:59.6	press press the lever to get the reward, the enjoyable stimulus.
2:06.2	Wire hitting was more enjoyable than food or sex
2:11.0	or anything else.
2:12.1	And unlike other pleasures, it didn't seem to show any tolerance.
2:16.7	Here was a way that you could get rid of all forms of suffering if one were to have an implant like this. This was tremendously
2:29.5	exciting to me.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -1783 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Here Be Monsters Podcast, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Here Be Monsters Podcast and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.