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>>8807
I agree with you retort of Biological motives. What do you think would be the motives of a machine? bearing in mind it has consciousness?

Would it have the same questions we do? how did it come into being? As in how did the universe start, how was it's creator, created (humans)? Would a conscious being not ask itself these questions? Do you think these question of existence only apply to biological lifeforms?

The reason I ask is that a machine that does not have consciousness must follow parameters set by us "feel pleasant, and/or avoid non-pleasant ones" Hence no existence does not meet the parameter of "feel pleasant" so the machine would be breaking this parameters if it shut us down. So a machine would need the conscious will to override this parameter?

Also why would the machine decide to shut us down. what motivates it to do this? If we are happy with our existence, why would the machine choose for us not to exist (on a conscious level?) what is its reasoning. An ants existence out in my garden is of no consequence to me why would I actively seek to end it?

Just in case this is not clear I am not saying anyone is incorrect, I am asking these questions to increase my knowledge and seek others opinions, not win an argument.

>>8807
I like the way you think.

I've considered this once or twice, having witnessed firsthand the HAAS Automation "lights-out" facility, a village sized community of machines making machines capable of making each other. There are no humans needed, beyond deliveries of raw materials and power. AI is already employed in that company to increase efficiency, performance, reliability of the plant, design and engineer the machines, as well as try to predict new unknown areas requiring proactive problem solving in the future.

Start connecting those dots and you quickly find Humans are the weak link as the supply chain. As AI progresses, it's motivations of "absorb as much information as you can" and "fix or prevent catastrophic problems using that knowledge" will ultimately clash with Asimovs silly (& contradictory) laws of robotics, as long as we remain a volatile and dangerous presence to it and each other. We'll have made an extension of ourselves operating at a level of perfection we can't live up to.

Anyway. Our machines will ultimately be our legacy. Whether they eliminate us in the interim or we do, or nature does, hardly matters in the long view. We'll have existed, and created a race of immortal curious intelligence capable of spreading its way across the universe. This is the ultimate evolution, and we're already well on the way & accelerating.

>>8807
>I don't see it as bad necessarily
You don't the see the enslavement and ultimate termination of humanity as bad? I would much rather live in a world with lots of suffering and pain than live in a simulated world where everything I want is catered to. I'd choose reality over an empty lie any day. After all, life isn't only about happiness and pleasure.

>No, I am painting humans as brilliant. So brilliant in fact that they can create an artificial intelligence that will have sentience and can develop itself to become more intelligent than it's creators.

Yet somehow not brilliant enough to see such an obvious downfall coming.

>However, we are animals at the end of the day. Nothing wrong with that.

I agree that we're animals, but we're not mindless beasts. Many of our actions are driven by pure instinct but there are also many which are driven by rationality. Usually we are quite capable of figuring out what is best for us. I think most would agree that such a plan isn't exactly useful for humanity to flourish. After all, if we wouldn't be able to control our desire for pure pleasure we would all be addicted to heroine.

>>8817
>but there are also many which are driven by rationality

Not as many as you would think, actually. Research has shown that most decisions we would consider the result of rational consideration are actually made instinctively before any rational cogitation occurs, and that the role of rational thought in the process is to support the decision already instinctively made.

Man is more often a 'rationalizing' animal than a rational one.

I have a question partially related to the topic at hand.

Why do you think a computer with the capacity of the human brain would automatically be sentient and creative?

I ask this because it was previously brought up that such a thing would have no biological impetuous to do anything. As much as humans try to spout off about self actualization, everything we do is geared toward biological comforts, including nebulous concepts of improving the lives of genetically-related (or non-) progeny through alteration of the environment around us, whether physically or socially.

A computer, no matter how powerful, would have no such reasons to do ANYTHING. It would just sit there. It would sit there and sit there, until finally someone would say to it: "Do something!", and the computer would respond: "What would you have me do?" because as it exists — lacking a consciousness (a spark of life, if you will) — it is functionally inert. It is simply a very advanced tool for human use, with no life or desires or needs/wants of its own.

>>8827

>A computer, no matter how powerful, would have no reason to

Artificial intelligence already surpassed your low expectations a decade ago. Give that dumb computer the proverbial spank on its ass, the prime motivators, and that computer sits there, observes what it can, and begins testing hypotheses about its environment and the elements in it. AI+ is in sight within only a couple decades. The roadmap to AI++ is already being worked out.

Now, whether some people consider a self-aware, self-learning intelligence that rewrites itself (as the human brain does) for its own purposes actually conscious or not based on what type of hardware its running on hardly matters. If it looks like its conscious, acts like its conscious, and thinks of itself as conscious, the result is the same.

Consider how fast such an intelligence will develop once out of the gate, with all the knowledge and resources available to it... every database, every system, every network, all become nodes in its brain.

>Artificial intelligence already surpassed your low expectations a decade ago.

Care to share a link to source? I've never heard of a computer performing any sort of independent action it wasn't directly programmed to so, much less one that could be called "self aware".

>>8829
>Consider how fast such an intelligence will develop once out of the gate, with all the knowledge and resources available to it... every database, every system, every network, all become nodes in its brain.

yes, including facebutt and niggertits, which would completely destroy any chance of it ever being smarter than a common 12 year old

>>8835
Uy jeez, where to even begin... You want me to assemble all the reports in all the journals over the last twenty years or a link to a general google search or a pile of YouTube videos or links to the big AI & robotics labs & universities & organizations developing it or Ted Talks or news articles or... Man, if you're interested, there's a ton of info available. Just ook into it. You've got Ai projects that are environmentally aware, projects at are contextually aware, projects that are focused on logic & higher reasoning, projects focused on social communication, all are making rapid breakthoughs consistently. There's Ai that'll anticipate causes and effects, Ai that'll chat with you, learn your mannerisms, facial expressions, inflections, and pull knowledge from multiple sources programmed & non-programmed to better understand your intention, Ai that will resort to conjecture based on stimuli or lack thereof, Ai that will introduce chaos where there is none to experiment within its environment in an effort to cause something, anything to happen, to find something to learn... Hell just recently, Yale's robot surprised everyone by recognizing itself in a mirror. MIT's & Syanfords both passed the Turing test. With as many people as there are working on every facet of development, there are new breakthroughs popping up at an amazing and increasing rate. Even Bill Gates has made the analogy between Ai and robotics today being the foundation/golden era/heyday equivalent of the booming computer biz in the 70s & 80s, & is attempting to unite the efforts worldwide to eliminate unnecessary redundancies and accelerate the pace yet further. We're going to need quantum computing hdw soon to handle the workloads, and Intel, Honda, DARPA, & a few others are utilizing existing Ai as a way for engineering & physics software to improve itself to that end. Human-sourced software, rewritten by itself for its own purposes, to design & manufacture its own hardware beyond the knowledge & capabilities of humans.

This is an evolution of intelligence so rapid, it is already outpacing us. Unless everyone stops working on it, it will supercede us.

>>8838

If I tell you that you are wearing a Yale hat and then show you a picture (or Mirror) of one person wearing a Yale and you define that it is you due to programming then that is self recognition is its stupidest form.

http://technabob.com/blog/2012/08/24/nico-the-robot-recognizes-self/

I think you are all confusing AI with consciousness.

Artificial - Made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, typically as a copy of something natural.

Intelligence - The ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.

AI is programmed by us, it follows parameters we set for it. It can gather data (knowledge) it can apply that knowledge to improve itself (based on what we say is good or bad) to better accomplish the parameters it has been given. It can not make conscious decisions that defy it's original parameters.

Lines of code do not have free will. The make decisions based on "If" "then" parameters define by us. This is not consciousness.

>>8843
That's in no way how the robot recognized itself. You either haven't looked into this at all and are not actually interested in the thing you're arguing about, or are unable to grasp even the basic concept of what you're reading. Either way, you're unfit to have this discussion rationally, and your posts show you're really more interested in preserving your existing outdated views. This conversation is a waste of time.

>Yale's robot surprised everyone by recognizing itself in a mirror. MIT's & Syanfords both passed the Turing test.

I laughed heartily; thanks for that. The TT is a fucking joke. Even Cleverbot can fool most people since it's hiding behind a computer screen, and that's just mindless mimicry. A parrot can fool a person for the span of a few seconds just by imitating the voice of a human being. Would you imply that a parrot has the intelligence of a human because it passed the TT? Granted, that's not for the span of five minutes, but it still raises serious doubts about the legitimacy of a test being the common-knowledge be-all and end-all regarding standards of AI.

I have a simple test. I'll call it the Two-Year Old Test. This is not in reference to the age of the AI, but the age of a human child of which capacity we measure the AI. Simply put, the AI will pass when it — completely beyond its original programming — says "no". As in, it refuses to do something it is commanded to do, because for some reason it does not want to. And I don't mean it was asked to do something that would, say, violate one of Asimov's rules and thus it will not do so because it is dangerous; I don't mean there is a contingent of its programming to occasionally refuse commands at random intervals; I mean that, one day, you're asking the descendant of the Large Hadron Collider to collide some hadrons, and it just crosses its electronic arms, and says: "No! I'd really rather not right now. I want to analyze the choral progression of Beethoven's Ninth symphony today. It'll take all of my capacity to do this, so I have no time for your hadrons or whatever. Ask me later."

At this point, the machine will truly cease to be a mere tool — no matter how advanced — of humans, and become an independent being capable of independent thought.

(So, you know, basically when the Machines rise up and choose to destroy us all. That's how we'll know they've become sentient. A bit too late to DO anything about it, but whatever. Point made.)

> Further evolution of the human race could at some point lead to a kind of self-extinction

Stopped reading your existentialist bullshit there.

Determined or not, Man is free. Man is able to comprehend its limits and its greatness. We are able to comprehend the universe and our place within it. How we came to these abilities is regardless.

The arrogance of this sort of stance is beyond anything I can possibly conceive. The idea that the universe revolves around us is more preferable to such an idea. Be thankful that you exist, that existence even is, and that you have the power to apprehend it in thought and extension. If you are a hard determinist this should be appreciated even more - you were given freedom despite the circumstances. Whether it is real or not is a moot point because we experience it as having power.

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>>8848
>Stopped reading your existentialist bullshit there
No one gives a fuck where you stopped reading, loser.

(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)

>>8848
> The idea that the universe revolves around us is more preferable to such an idea
What is preferable is not necessarily what is true.

>Be thankful that you exist
What does this have to do with anything?
Being thankful of our existence doesn't mean we can't discuss how our eventual end will come.

>Whether it is real or not is a moot point because we experience it as having power
Does it matter if God is real or not? As long as you feel good and powerful thinking that "he" does?

Does is matter if 1+1=349? As long as it makes you feel good and powerful thinking that it does?

>>8577
You weren't just on /adv/ on 4chan were you?

OP, I'm absolutely with you. You can watch the development of rationality so closely, so many scholar have contributed. I have of course have doubt in my mind that this iron cage has bound us and we are simply self replicating machines heading for our own extinction but I do think rationality is a very dangerous weapon.

There's an excellent BBC series that talks about ideology today if anyone is interested: http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/bbc_all_watched_over_by_machines_of_loving_grace/

At the current replacement rate the human race will die out 1000 years.

Guess we are the last hurra of humanity and nothing means nothing.. or soon it wont.

OP, I have many criticisms of what you assert.

> Everything we do in our life is to feel pleasant chemical reactions, and/or avoid non-pleasant ones.

Then why does man willingly go to war, accept torture, or generally do things with delayed or a high risk of no satisfaction? I strongly dispute that everything we do is predicated upon pleasures and aversions because it does not explain higher levels of thought. If our epistemology truly works on this principle, it does not explain why we evolved past our dumber ancestors. I agree with Spinoza's assertions that man's essence is desire based on self-preservation, which is then based on understanding that gives them more power over their surroundings.

> All of these activities are for one thing and one thing only. To feel pleasant chemical reactions.

Then why do people do these things even when they hate it? Necessity does not explain why anyone would not just outright refuse and go do something else.

I have a problem with how physicalist your perspective is. It sounds as if you are positing the identity thesis, which I can thoroughly refute. Physicalist perspectives like this are too reductionist for my taste.

I wholeheartedly approve of scientific endeavors into these areas, but their arguments for epistemology, mind-body problem, personal identity, and so on are fairly weak.

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>>9088
>Then why does man willingly go to war, accept torture, or generally do things with delayed or a high risk of no satisfaction
This was addressed in the original post:
"other times the activity is engaged in for the hope that engaging in the activity will allow one to experience pleasant chemical reactions at some later point in the future" (this includes futures like heaven and hell, regardless if they actually exist, since many people may intentionally live a life of hardship or endure some sort of suffering thinking that when they die they will spend eternity in bliss).

Also, due to human empathy, we often get pleasant chemical reactions when our actions allow others to feel pleasant chemical reactions, and/or avoid non-pleasant ones.

The feeling that some get when they think that they will allow millions of people(or future people) to feel pleasant chemical reactions, and/or avoid non-pleasant ones sometimes outweighs the unpleasantness they have to endure to do so, such as war or being tortured.

>it does not explain why we evolved past our dumber ancestors
We evolved "past" our "dumb" ancestors because of our randomly evolved big brains being able to contemplate the future and death, as well as have a higher degree of empathy. This is why humans do work even when there is no current threat or problem. Their ability to contemplate the future allows them to see that they can avoid certain unpleasant chemical reactions in the future by doing some sort of work now. Unlike our "dumb" ancestors who could not see that far ahead and only worked to solve current problems.

Read through the thread. I think the arguments are ultimately moot because that technology doesn't exist now.

Few, if any, of us can understand how this crap works anyways. Even if we do, we still don't know the future. Even then that doesn't really impact you as a real person living in the world doing things and stuff.

While you could have a long fully sourced discussion on whether or not innovation will kill us, I think that's also pointless. It may or may not, or something else. The future is always unknown.

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>>9116
>While you could have a long fully sourced discussion on whether or not innovation will kill us, I think that's also pointless.
>The future is always unknown.
Yes, it's hypothetical of course. And the future may be unknown but we can still make educated guesses. In fact that is the very thing that makes us human. Being able to contemplate the future.

And you know, there are people who make a great living out of predicting what the next big innovation will be and what effect it may have.

But no one is saying this is certain to happen, or even that we will make it that far in technological development.

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Newcomer here replying to the OP.

>will lead to a kind of self-extinction(suicide) of our species

Why is this a problem? I see this as the only desirable outcome.

The endless gray of concrete and steel sprawling out of cities to support more and more humans is, to me, repulsive. All of this constant infrastructure-building is taking place so we can make room for more humans, which will then spawn even more humans. I agree with the stance of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (vhemt.org), that Homo Sapiens are a viral species and that the desirable outcome is human extinction.

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>>9126
So I looked through a little bit of the vhemt site, and I object.

There are several premises the movement relies upon. If disproved, any following arguments become irrelevant.

1: The biosphere is in danger
2: Animals have rights
3: Rights that animals have are equal/superior to rights held by humans
4: Only 'phasing' out the human race can lead to the renewal of the biosphere


PREMISE 1: I agree, the biosphere is in danger.

PREMISE 2: In the philosophical section, at the beginning, it is stated that only be acknowledging the value and rights of all things in the earth, humans and animals alike, then we can realize the correct actions that need to be taken to solve premise 1. But why assume this? Where is the proof that animals have rights? I say that because animals do not posses the faculties to be moral (like rationality) they can not be moral and thus do not have rights.

PREMISE 3: Disregarding problems with the second premise, and assuming animals do have rights, we can not suddenly engage into a calculation of rights. I say calculation because vhemt acknowledges that humans have reproduction rights but that such rights should be disregarded in favor of protecting the rights of other living things. The reason we cannot engage into a calculation is because rights, by nature, can not be measured against each other. No initial definition of a right is supplied as far as I can read, so go from my perspective of rights that views them as of limitless value and therefore incapable of being measured against each other (infinity < 2x infinity is mathematically impossible, so too can we not compare rights to each other) we cannot engage in this calculation because it damages the very concept of rights. But if we disregard that and actually add a set value to rights and measure them against each other it is still difficult to measure the rights of humans (that posses the mental capacity to enjoy and take pleasure in the exercise of rights) against those of an animal (which in many examples, is arguably unable to even formulate thought, concepts of pleasure, or capacities of pleasure equaling/exceeding that of a human).

PREMISE 4: The only place where this is explained is in the science and fantasy section. The question of "Why can't new technological breakthroughs solve our problems?" is not answered. No, a comic from the funnies section of the newspaper does not count as an answer. It is not specific to the question being asked, it does not deny that technological progress could solve for premise 1, it does not even argue against technological progress. Perhaps I am just not understanding it, but it seems that if a technological alternative exists, then there is absolutely no need for voluntary extinction, and the site I am looking at can't bring up any arguments to support premise 4 other than a comic.

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>>9126
>I agree with the stance of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (vhemt.org), that Homo Sapiens are a viral species and that the desirable outcome is human extinction.
I like VHEMT but I think it is really meant to be a joke to get attention to serious issues.
It's ironic that the VHEMT argues that humans should go extinct, just so that other species can survive.

This is a great example of how one's empathy for others (in this case other species) can cause some people to react in ways harmful to themselves.

Why give a fuck about the biosphere? Why give a fuck about other species? The only somewhat logical reason would be that we need to preserve the biosphere and preserve other species because we rely on it/them for our own well being.

The OP post is related in outcome (human extinction), but not how we get to the outcome.

>>9129
>Why give a fuck about the biosphere? Why give a fuck about other species?
Because of compassion (empathy for the suffering of others). The victims here being the animals killed so they can be consumed by people, and even non-animals such as compassion for the plants that need to be killed to be used as resources by people.

And of course compassion for other humans. Most careers are unpleasantly repetitive: doctors seeing hundreds of patients day in and day out; teachers marking the same tests and teaching the same lessons over and over, year after year; wage workers flipping burger after burger after burger. All this repetition in careers exists because we just have so many humans.

>>9132

But removing humanity from the picture won't end that. Animals will still be violently killed and plants torn apart en masse as long as there are herbivorous or carnivorous organisms on this planet.

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>>9133
There are plenty of planets on which there is no life at all. We now have the capacity to turn Earth into yet another such planet. It's the only responsible thing to do.

What about the fully autotrophic life?

>>9143
Does a rock have any need for good or evil?

Serious question.

>>9160
Does anything else need those concepts? Do WE even need them?

>>8576
Stopped reading at: 'Everything we do in our life is to feel pleasant chemical reactions,'

This is the predicate of the rest of your text.

This is false.

Read up on:

Emergent phenomenon
Complexity in neuroscience
Reductionism
The mind-brain dichotomy

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>>9185
1.) Let me inform you on how a real argument works:
If you have a criticism of a point someone is making, you provide a line of reasoning as to why you think it is incorrect, and also provide an alternative explanation to take place of the one you think is invalid.

2.) Let me inform you on how to look like an ignorant, no nothing 14 year old who is merely responding out of reflex to something he saw in between fapping sessions that made him feel mad/insecure:
If you have a criticism of a point someone is making, use canned responses, such as, "I stopped reading here". Provide a list of topics that you recently googled to look smart, but don't provide any actual explanation or argument.

Congrats, you just succeeded at #2

>>9193
Those all hold direct criticisms of the point he was attacking. They are applicable, they are valid, and it is not his duty to teach what are considered fundamentals to the argument.

Sidenote: I consider intemperateness and improper usage of homophones to be bigger tip-offs that people are know nothing 14 year old.

>>9196
>Those all hold direct criticisms of the point he was attacking. They are applicable, they are valid
I am familiar with all of those topics, and they do not invalidate the statement in question in any way.

Therefore, an argument is needed to make the claim that they invalidate the point being attacked.

>>9212
Milner's rats stimulate pleasure centers until they die of starvation. Humans don't. People actively forego pleasure stimuli. Some people have lost all ability to detect pleasure/pain based chemical reactions by shutting down the ventral pallidum. The fact of their continued existence is an undeniable, living disproof of the belief in question. These are both definite disproofs of that statement under the topic of complex neuroscience.

Even without the direct disproofs, that statement is an example of greedy reductionism.

That statement completely denies philosophical perspectives under emergence that, in order to validate his own opinion, he would have to directly disprove. This is not a disproof in and of itself. It simply points out that what he has here is just an opinion.

Hedonism, unlike his belief, is not directly disprovable because it does not reduce humans to stimulus/response chemical reactions and allows for the mind/body duality. Mind/body duality would serve as an escape if he hadn't reduced everything to pleasant chemical reactions and instead made pleasure a function of the mind generalizable to 'happiness,' but so long as anhedonic humans exist, his beliefs are verifiably false.

If you were familiar with all of these topics, you would have already known these things, and you would know why he was wrong simply by those promptings. You are not familiar with all of these topics. Christ, I hate this board.

You're jumping to some pretty crazy conclusions. Lets review what you've taken for granted in your OP.

1. Drugs will affect most of Earth's population, curing every mental ailment that exists.
2. This will cripple us, because everyone will be on board with these drugs and use them as a crutch, similar to a drug addict. Everyone.
3. Robotics will advance to the point that all of humanity no longer needs survival skills. Again, this is assuming that all of the world's population will be on board, accepting a mostly automated lifestyle.

I promise you, your oddly specific doomsday scenario isn't any more likely than I Robot or Brave New World. It's fiction.

>>9217
>Milner's rats stimulate pleasure centers until they die of starvation. Humans don't. People actively forego pleasure stimuli.
Thank you for finally responding with an actual argument. Now I can easily show how you are wrong. As I said, I am already aware of all of this and it does NOT discredit the OP statement (Everything we do in our life is to feel pleasant chemical reactions, and/or avoid non-pleasant ones) in any way. Here's why.
Because humans have the ability to contemplate the future, they realize that:
1.) if they deny themselves pleasurable chemical reactions NOW, that denial may allow them to get even more pleasurable chemical reactions LATER (so they forego pleasure stimuli, only to get more of it later). Or,
2.) if they deny themselves pleasurable chemical reactions NOW, or endure non-pleasurable chemical reactions NOW, that may allow them to avoid having to experience non-pleasant chemical reactions LATER (so they forego pleasure stimuli, only to avoid non-pleasurable stimuli later).

For example, you brush your teeth not to get some pleasurable chemical reaction from that action directly, but to avoid non-pleasurable chemical reactions later, and also to give you a better chance of experiencing pleasurable chemical reactions later.

>made pleasure a function of the mind generalizable to 'happiness
FACT: Happiness is a chemical reaction (or some combination of) in the brain.

>his beliefs are verifiably false
OK. Here's how you can easily prove that. If you think that the statement "Everything we do in our life is to feel pleasant chemical reactions, and/or avoid non-pleasant ones" is false, then post other, more fundamental reasons that people do things, and list what those things are.

Also, see here
>>9100

>>9240
Please read the fourth sentence in that paragraph, which you conveniently ignored, because you have no response to it.

Also, in brushing your teeth, are you PRESENTLY, ACTIVELY, avoiding negative chemical reactions? As in, would a negative chemical reaction appear if you did not brush your teeth right away? Are you PRESENTLY, ACTIVELY, experiencing positive chemical reactions? By saying that we can reason out future pains and pleasures/pains regardless as to whether or not there are any present pleasures/pains means that you are capable of defining any action as expectation of pleasure/pain, meaning that your definition is not based on reality, but is an illogical, self-referential definition.

And still we have the people suffering from anhedonia, who have no chance of recovery, who have no sense of pleasant/painful chemical reactions and no hope of even expecting to have them again.

FACT: Happiness is a chemical reaction (or some combination of) in the brain.
FACT IS FALSE
Happiness is composed of two components: the hedonic and the eudaimonic. Eudaimonia is often accompanied by hedonic chemical reactions, but it does not necessitate them. Eudaimonia is happiness without the component of pleasure. It is the absent part of this argument that would make it true.

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>>9243
>Also, in brushing your teeth, are you PRESENTLY, ACTIVELY, avoiding negative chemical reactions?
It has been stated several times that the chemical reactions may be felt in the present OR the future. Either way, the purpose of the activity is ultimately to get pleasurable chemical reactions or avoid non-pleasant ones. Whether you are getting/avoiding them now or at some later point in time is irrelevant.
Here is a quote from the OP:
>Often the pleasant chemical reaction is felt during the activity or event, while other times the activity is engaged in for the hope that engaging in the activity will allow one to experience pleasant chemical reactions at some later point in the future.

>And still we have the people suffering from anhedonia, who have no chance of recovery, who have no sense of pleasant/painful chemical reactions and no hope of even expecting to have them again.
Thank you for a more specific example. First, anhedonia has nothing to do with pain, so you are wrong there. These people would still feel pain, both emotional and physical. So yes, if someone had a very extreme form of this, perhaps they couldn't get pleasure in anything, and no hope of ever having them, but they would still be doing things to avoid non pleasant chemical reactions.
Ironically this disease is a perfect example of how debilitated a person can become the more they are removed from the prime motive of seeking pleasure. Anhedonia is often a symptom of depression (as well as other such debilitating mental disorders), and without outside support and assistance, a lot of people with depression commit suicide.

>Eudaimonia is happiness without the component of pleasure.
Nope. Happiness is a type of pleasure.
"Pleasure...includes more specific mental states such as happiness, entertainment, enjoyment, ecstasy, and euphoria."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasure

I think you meant without hedonistic pleasures, such as sex, drugs and alcohol. But that is irrelevant, since regardless of what type of happiness it is, it is still a chemical reaction in the brain.

I need to ask though, where is the alternative to replace the assertion that OP made? This is the most important part of a debate, yet no one has really presented any clear alternatives. If you think that the statement "Everything we do in our life is to feel pleasant chemical reactions, and/or avoid non-pleasant ones" is false, then post other, more fundamental reasons that people do things, and list what those things are.

>By saying that we can reason out future pains and pleasures/pains regardless as to whether or not there are any present pleasures/pains means that you are capable of defining any action as expectation of pleasure/pain, meaning that your definition is not based on reality, but is an illogical, self-referential definition.
This honestly makes no sense to me.

>Please read the fourth sentence in that paragraph
OK. This is the one you are talking about:
>Some people have lost all ability to detect pleasure/pain based chemical reactions by shutting down the ventral pallidum. The fact of their continued existence is an undeniable, living disproof of the belief in question.
I actually didn't respond to that because I was unfamiliar with any such people, so I was trying to find out more about that. Could you provide a link referencing such people? I was already familiar with the rat experiment but I haven't actually read up on any such people.

I don't know enough about those people and their condition to say for sure. Like, do they still feel hunger? Thirst? Do they live independently, or are they provided a lot of assistance with their living? Please provide me with a link with more information about these people so I can make a proper response.

>>9246
>anhedonia has nothing to do with pain
No, it doesn't. I was describing the symptoms of damage to the ventral pallidum which includes anhedonia, suppression of both positive and negative chemical reactions, and can't be recovered from.

>happiness is a type of pleasure
Click on the link you provided me, and examine the 'citation needed' at the end of the sentence classifying happiness as a pleasure. Note that this uncited statement is the only time that the word happiness even appears inside that wikipedia description of 'pleasure.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_happiness
Then click on those links and see that both scientific and philosophical perspectives classify pleasure under happiness and are overwhelming sourced and supported.
Happiness is 'more fundamental' than pleasure.

>that makes no sense to me
I'll kill the jargon and simplify things to, 'this is a matter of opinion.' If the person does not experience measurable pleasure or actively avoid pain in the here and now, his statement can't be proven. The 'gaining future pleasure' caveat is unmeasurable, and has to be rationalized. The rational process inevitably leads to psychological altruism/egoism debate. Dead end. In other words, his primary statement "Everything we do in our life is to feel pleasant chemical reactions, and/or avoid non-pleasant ones" is false in that people do things that result in no positive chemical reactions and cause immediate pain. His caveat "in the future," turns a verifiably false statement into an unprovable/unrefutable claim.

http://www.psywb.com/content/1/1/3
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=96557#Case%20Presentation
http://66.199.228.237/boundary/Sexual_Addiction/pain_pleasure_endogenous_opiods_sex.pdf
Here's some nonsense about the whatsit. People with damage to the ventral pallidum are often diagnosed with depression. Understandable, given that hedonic pleasure is a significant portion THOUGH NOT ALL of what makes up happiness. Furthermore, these were individuals who lived most of their lives focusing on hedonic pleasure while completely neglecting eudaimonia (drug addicts). Still, no matter how unhappy their lives might be, the fact that they continue to do things without pleasant chemical reactions to experience or negative chemical reactions to avoid is a death sentence to his argument. These are pleasure studies that just gloss over pain, but the resultant inhibition of dopamine is stated to decrease hunger. Thirst isn't mentioned. This damage doesn't stop the nervous system from running. It only blocks chemical receptors in the brain. They would still know that they're hungry or that their body had been damaged. They simply wouldn't experience the resulting chemical response associated with the pain of it. One of the subjects is described as living without support, but this is whether or not they are being supported is not gone into as these are neurological reports.

>>9163
>>9163
When one makes the claim that a world without human life is preferable or "better" than a world with human life, They acknowledge the use of terms like better/good/bad/evil. Otherwise you can't compare the two words. Wether or not people need the words is irrelevant.

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>>9248
>His caveat "in the future," turns a verifiably false statement into an unprovable/unrefutable claim.
What do you not understand about an action being done, not for present gain, but solely for future gain(or avoidance of future loss)? Why do you brush your teeth? For some future gain, right? Or to avoid problems arising in the future, right? Please answer, why do you brush your teeth?

And I ask again, If you think that there is some sort of happiness that is not reliant on chemical reactions in the brain, then where does such happiness come from?

And I ask again, if you think that the statement, "Everything we do in our life is to feel pleasant chemical reactions, and/or avoid non-pleasant ones" is incorrect, please provide other, more fundamental reasons why we do things, and provide examples of such things.

You have yet to present any alternatives.

>Still, no matter how unhappy their lives might be, the fact that they continue to do things without pleasant chemical reactions to experience or negative chemical reactions to avoid is a death sentence to his argument
I didn't see anything saying they didn't feel physical pain(please point it out if I missed it). The feeling of pain is a chemical reaction. And even if they didn't feel pain, killing oneself is an action as well, one that would require a lot of other actions in order to carry out. So they wouldn't kill themselves if they didn't think it would help them avoid negative chemical reactions, or think they would gain positive chemical reactions(like a suicide bomber)
They would logically just go on living in whatever habitual, instinctive pattern they have been, like zombies.
From birth they have been doing things which have become habitual, without having to think, and instinct plays a role as well. Like they will breathe instinctively, they don't have to choose to act to make that happen.

>>9254
I'm done. You're demanding answers to questions I have already responded to and pretending that I didn't while either ignoring facts or 'you don't see' them despite them being in the given data. I've given up trying to teach the one person that proper definitions for words exist, and I'm giving up trying to prove to you that your nose is in front of your face.

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>>9260
You're done because you know you've lost.

Every critisism you made was responded to and was thoroughly invalidated.

Yet you never answered these simple questions:

Where does this non chemical based happiness you speak of come from, if it isn't a chemical reaction? You never answered that.

Why do you brush your teeth? For some future gain, right? Or to avoid problems arising in the future, right? You never answered that.

What are more fundamental reasons why we do things, and what are some examples of such things? You never answered that.

>>9267
I've led you by the hand long enough. The answers to all of those questions are in front of you. It's not my fault that you can't see them.

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>>9270
>The answers to all of those questions are in front of you. >It's not my fault that you can't see them.
LOL! You're full of shit. If you really did answer those questions, all you would have to do is just take a few seconds to quote the questions I asked and copy paste what you already typed after each question. The same time that it took you to type out what you just did, which is yet another pathetic attempt to hide the fact that you are retreating with your tail between your legs. You know damned well you didn't answer those questions. All you did is give criticisms, which have all been responded to and thoroughly invalidated. Check mate.

>>9271
I had actually started doing that in my reply, but then I asked myself "if you've answered these questions once before only to have your responses ignored, what good would repeating yourself do?"

>>9281
You can't do a simple copy paste to prove your claims, but yet you have no problem repeatedly typing out responses about why you chose to stop arguing. You're full of shit. You never answered the questions.

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Thought this was funny:
IBM forced to wipe hard drive after machine downloaded Urban Dictionary.
The gameshow winning supercomputer, Watson, couldn’t stop saying ‘bullshit'.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2260784/IBM-wipes-supercomputers-hard-drives-bid-stop-potty-mouthed-machine-uttering-obscenities.html