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Why Does Anything Exist?: and 500+ Answers to Other Mysteries
The questions tackled in this volume were originally answered by transhumanist philosopher David Pearce on the platform Quora.
Topics covered include the riddle of existence; an informationless Zero Ontology; the Hedonistic Imperative; paradise engineering; the abolitionist project; effective altruism; the nature of perception; the Hard Problem of consciousness; the phenomenal binding problem; quantum theories of consciousness and mind; non-materialist physicalism and panpsychism; the measurement problem in quantum mechanics; Everett and wavefunction monism; the nature of reality; naturalizing semantics, the relationship between transhumanism and ethics; negative utilitarianism and suffering-focused ethics; the benevolent world-exploder argument; mental health and depression, evolutionary psychology, soft and hard antinatalism; the reproductive revolution; the Post-Darwinian Transition; utiltronium shockwaves; meta-ethics and moral philosophy; qualia and subjective experience; questions of personal identity and continuity; closed/empty/open individualism; technological approaches to eliminating suffering; genetic engineering and CRISPR applications; artificial intelligence and consciousness; IQ/AQ; full-spectrum superintelligence; radical life-extension and longevity research; cryonics and cryothanasia; the future of human enhancement; wireheading; information-sensitive gradients of bliss; nonhuman animal ethics; wild animal suffering; bioethical abolitionism applied to nonhuman animals; arguments for ethical veganism; the cultured meat revolution; high-tech Jainism; herbivorising predators; genome reform; hedonic eugenics; the reproductive revolution; global veganism; synthetic gene drives; the neurobiology of pleasure and pain; recalibrating the hedonic treadmill; superhappiness; the future of sentience and cognition; the pharmacology of happiness; hedonic enhancement technologies; the biohappiness revolution; the evolution of sentience; long-term future scenarios; immersive VR, existential risks; future suffering risks; AI risks; psychedelics and altered states; and responses to critics of The Hedonistic Imperative.
Some loose ends remain.
Topics covered include the riddle of existence; an informationless Zero Ontology; the Hedonistic Imperative; paradise engineering; the abolitionist project; effective altruism; the nature of perception; the Hard Problem of consciousness; the phenomenal binding problem; quantum theories of consciousness and mind; non-materialist physicalism and panpsychism; the measurement problem in quantum mechanics; Everett and wavefunction monism; the nature of reality; naturalizing semantics, the relationship between transhumanism and ethics; negative utilitarianism and suffering-focused ethics; the benevolent world-exploder argument; mental health and depression, evolutionary psychology, soft and hard antinatalism; the reproductive revolution; the Post-Darwinian Transition; utiltronium shockwaves; meta-ethics and moral philosophy; qualia and subjective experience; questions of personal identity and continuity; closed/empty/open individualism; technological approaches to eliminating suffering; genetic engineering and CRISPR applications; artificial intelligence and consciousness; IQ/AQ; full-spectrum superintelligence; radical life-extension and longevity research; cryonics and cryothanasia; the future of human enhancement; wireheading; information-sensitive gradients of bliss; nonhuman animal ethics; wild animal suffering; bioethical abolitionism applied to nonhuman animals; arguments for ethical veganism; the cultured meat revolution; high-tech Jainism; herbivorising predators; genome reform; hedonic eugenics; the reproductive revolution; global veganism; synthetic gene drives; the neurobiology of pleasure and pain; recalibrating the hedonic treadmill; superhappiness; the future of sentience and cognition; the pharmacology of happiness; hedonic enhancement technologies; the biohappiness revolution; the evolution of sentience; long-term future scenarios; immersive VR, existential risks; future suffering risks; AI risks; psychedelics and altered states; and responses to critics of The Hedonistic Imperative.
Some loose ends remain.
1318 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 18, 2024
2 people want to read
About the author
David Pearce
42 books68 followersDavid Pearce is a British independent philosopher. He believes and promotes the idea that there exists a strong ethical imperative for humans to work towards the abolition of suffering in all sentient life. His book-length internet manifesto The Hedonistic Imperative outlines how technologies such as genetic engineering, nanotechnology, pharmacology, and neurosurgery could potentially converge to eliminate all forms of unpleasant experience among human and nonhuman animals, replacing suffering with gradients of well-being, a project he refers to as "paradise engineering". A transhumanist and a vegan, Pearce believes that we (or future evolutions of humans) have a responsibility not only to avoid cruelty to animals within human society but also to redesign the global ecosystem so that animals do not suffer in the wild.
Pearce co-founded Humanity+, then known as the World Transhumanist Association, and is a prominent figure in the transhumanist movement, inspiring a strain of transhumanism based on paradise engineering and ending suffering.
Pearce is primarily known as the author of The Hedonistic Imperative, a 1995 book-length manifesto in which he theorized how to "eradicate suffering in all sentient life" through paradise engineering. In Pearce's view, suffering is not necessary for humans and only exists because humanity evolved through methods that emphasised survival, rather than happiness. He writes that mental suffering will someday be seen as a relic of the past, just as physical suffering during surgery was effectively eliminated with the advent of anaesthesia.
In his work, Pearce outlines how drugs and technologies, including genetic engineering and nanotechnology, could enable the end of suffering in all sentient life. In the short term, Pearce argues, well-being can be helped by designer drugs, especially since safer mood-brighteners are becoming more readily available. In the long-term, however, suffering could be abolished by genetic engineering through biotechnology.
In 1998, Pearce co-founded Humanity+, the international transhumanism association, with fellow philosopher Nick Bostrom, now the director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. The association, then known as the World Transhumanist Association (WTA), is a nonprofit organisation that advocates transhumanism – an international cultural and intellectual movement with an eventual goal of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.
Pearce's ideas have inspired a strain of transhumanism based on paradise engineering. Pearce is vegan, and the increasing number of vegans and vegetarians in the transhumanist movement has been attributed to his influence.
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Pe...
http://www.bltc.com/
Pearce co-founded Humanity+, then known as the World Transhumanist Association, and is a prominent figure in the transhumanist movement, inspiring a strain of transhumanism based on paradise engineering and ending suffering.
Pearce is primarily known as the author of The Hedonistic Imperative, a 1995 book-length manifesto in which he theorized how to "eradicate suffering in all sentient life" through paradise engineering. In Pearce's view, suffering is not necessary for humans and only exists because humanity evolved through methods that emphasised survival, rather than happiness. He writes that mental suffering will someday be seen as a relic of the past, just as physical suffering during surgery was effectively eliminated with the advent of anaesthesia.
In his work, Pearce outlines how drugs and technologies, including genetic engineering and nanotechnology, could enable the end of suffering in all sentient life. In the short term, Pearce argues, well-being can be helped by designer drugs, especially since safer mood-brighteners are becoming more readily available. In the long-term, however, suffering could be abolished by genetic engineering through biotechnology.
In 1998, Pearce co-founded Humanity+, the international transhumanism association, with fellow philosopher Nick Bostrom, now the director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. The association, then known as the World Transhumanist Association (WTA), is a nonprofit organisation that advocates transhumanism – an international cultural and intellectual movement with an eventual goal of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.
Pearce's ideas have inspired a strain of transhumanism based on paradise engineering. Pearce is vegan, and the increasing number of vegans and vegetarians in the transhumanist movement has been attributed to his influence.
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Pe...
http://www.bltc.com/
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