Should we eliminate all aversive experiences

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If tomorrow we developed a brain implant capable of eliminating physical and emotional pain would it be ethical to mass produce and air drop billions of units to every continent - a neurological peace movement.

Abolitionism is the aim of theHedonic imperative

The eventual goal is to actually create a new pain pleasure gradient. Normal huamn emotion ranges from anguish at the low end to bliss at the high end. David Pearce has proposed that we place bliss at the low end and superhuman post utopian hair raising ecstasy.

Please assume that the government conducting the air drops is not corrupt - I know this is statisically improbable but just take it as a given. We have a totally benevolent government in this scenario.

Last edited by binaryodes on 22 Dec 2013, 11:32 am, edited 2 times in total.

It would be an effective way of killing those with such an implant. Pain exists for a warning... to tell us that harm is being done to us either physically or psychologically and that we need to take action to stop that harm. There are a few people born with a genetic defect that are unable to feel physical pain and they have to be extremely vigilant to protect their body from damage e.g. picking up something that is too hot and burns, getting cuts, stepping on something sharp etc.

Physical pain warnings could be replaced with something that's easily noticeable but doesn't hurt, but it would require some amount of responsibility not to ignore the warnings. I don't think there's any way that psychological warnings could be replaced with anything less painful though.

we dont actually need pain to be so acute and aversive in order for it to function as a signalling mechanism. People born with an inability to feel pain encounter injury because they have no signalling. If the implant conferred the ability to become aware of injurious stimuli. All it would take would be some means of creating an involuntary response. The pain part is unecessary.

I dont think its ethical to withhold the tech because some people wouldnt be responsible enough to heed pain signalling. That would be tantamount to self harm so any psychologically healthy individual would follow the warnings.

In fact the lack of a pain response occupying the conscious foreground could potentially be incredibly useful as it could allow us to react logically in the face of potential injury.

Last edited by binaryodes on 22 Dec 2013, 10:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

That is where it would fail; people wouldn't be responsible all the time. If someone picked up a hot frying pan containing their lunch and the handle was too hot our pain response would make us let go of the pan immediately and our lunch could spill all over the floor. However, if we had a choice we'd wait a second or two longer and put the pan down somewhere safely so we didn't drop it - but in so doing we would cause a more severe burn to our hand. We would also be in less hurry to put our burnt hand into cold water to prevent further damage.

I literally just addressed that in the post above. David Pearce is a utilitarian philosopher so the curx of his proposition is that pain and negative experience are so horrific and the consequences so far reaching that we have an ethical obligation to abolish them.

The option to maintain the current hedonic status quo would produce far more misery and pain than a few burnt fingers and thumbs

You can keep your bliss. I'd rather have serenity.

I can see cases where it would be useful and desirable to prevent pain without massive doses of pain killers which cause numerous side effects. I suffer from something called Trigeminal Neuralgia which is classed as being amongst the most painful conditions known to man. aghogday also has the same condition. We are both in remission at the moment (thankfully). The pain serves no warning purpose. It is caused by a short-circuit in one of the nerves in the face. At its worst I experience the pain of someone taking a hammer to my face and smashing my jaw bone with it... hundreds of times a day. The pain is excruciating and it is psychologically draining. The condition is also know as "the suicide disease" for obvious reasons... it is usual prognosis of sufferers. aghogday has experiences having an ice pick rammed into his eye socket all day long. I'm sure you can appreciate that any way of stopping this "unhelpful" pain would be wonderful for such sufferers.

However, I'm not convinced that freedom from all physical pain is desirable. I suspect that individuals with your brain implant will end up with more physical injuries than the rest of the population and will also have a shorter average life span due to complications arising from those injuries.

You may well be right - but in utilitarian terms does that justify restriction of the implant or are you suggesting not eliminating pain altogether but rather maximising our potential for happiness and reducing our capacity for pain?

It would instantly become an instrument of government mind control, and it would become illegal to not have one implanted, so I say no. I mean, I would love to quit feeling pain and negative emotions, but at the same time, I sure as hell don't want to become an expendable, mindless worker drone.

Another inevitable downside... young men in particular would be more likely to pick fights with each other or get into conflict situations that would result in physical injury to themselves and other people. If a huge brute of a doorman refuses entry to a nightclub to a young man, that young man is more likely to get into a fight with the doorman if he's not going to feel any pain. He's also not going to feel any pain either while he's laying in his hospital bed with broken ribs and be more likely to repeat the action again.

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Why would the young man attack the doorman if he able of emotional pain? The attack would usually be instigated by feelings of frustration and thwarted expectation

I was just going to say, why would people fight if they were incapable of feeling negative emotions?

Pain is too effective at causing you to modify your behavior.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congenital ... anhidrosis

If there is any "value" in suffering, it is the fact that we most appreciate the good things in life when we are reminded what it's like when things are bad.

A life of bliss would soon result in a catatonic world where we have no frame of reference. If suffering and happiness was on a scale from -10 to +10 and 0 being the average, a life of artificial +10 would soon become the new 0. With nothing to compare and contrast, we'd be incapable of rating anything above 0.

More so, our ability to adapt and overcome derives from experiencing pain. Never have pain? You'll stop applying adaptation skills. Worse is that if you are in constant bliss because of some device or drug, what happens if it stops working? You've long since lost the ability to cope and adapt to adversity.