It sounds counterintuitive and somewhat incredible I'm sure - but to be honest we hope for nothing less than the abolition of all sentient suffering. Will the project be completed in our lifetimes? Most likely not.

The Abolitionist Society is very young and we are just beginning to form associations with scientists, currently our collaborations are relatively small.

We view the ideological barriers to successful completion of the project to be much more daunting than the technical challenges - so much of what we do will be public relations, and spreading our message. That being said, the establishment of Abolitionism as a distinct and urgent research tradition is one of our prime objectives, as is the implementation of an Abolitionist research facility - which could be expanded upon and would operate with our values in mind.

"Absurdly fanciful?" - as Dave has put it, not really. Looking back at all the things we've accomplished throughout history as well as the looming technologies - the potential is there. We just have to build acceptance and ideological support in order to get things moving.

Also, I'd like to avoid limiting our activities to any specific realm so that we are open to new ideas and possible collaborations.

Cheers,
Sean

'sentient suffering' is an interesting term. By 'sentient' do you mean just human suffering? What about animals and plants, and what criteria are we to use to determine what's sentient?

And what is suffering? I don't mean this as a joke. Suffering can be of many types. And also, it does not seem to me that suffering is necessarily bad; as Nietzsche said, "what does not kill me, makes me stronger". By overcoming suffering, we grow and get stronger. Suffering is like a barrier that we need to endure and get through; However, without suffering, then there is no barrier to our progress and there is no friction, and the question is whether we require this barrier in order to make progress. That is, do we require suffering in order to grow and advance? Is suffering really a bad thing that we want to abolish? If it's not a bad thing, then what should we do if we don't abolish it (perhaps seeks ways to make us stronger in order to endure and overcome greater suffering and thus experience greater growth)?

That there can be no happiness without unhappiness is a concern we've heard many times and take seriously.

Does this mean that if you were completely happy, you'd want to suffer again?

It's hard for any darwinian to imagine life's values as not depending on one's position on the hedonic treadmill. Can values and direction in life be independent of a need to keep running on the treadmill? We think so.

"Is it faulty DNA, the base info for construction?
Is it in-built mutations seeking new opportunities?
Is it human manufacturing defects?
Is it the food chain?"

Our position is that natural selection has created a consciousness that suffers because it was simply beneficial for the propagation of our genes in the ancestral environment.

I'm not familiar with the term - 'British Standard Institute Human' - can you please describe this?

Thanks,
Sean

We define suffering as all aversive experience, though we don't think that the functional equivalents of aversive experience will neccessarily require abolition. Most likely human suffering will take precedence, but we wish that all sentient suffering be abolished. You are right to say that we have much to determine when it comes to sentient suffering. Some say that reptiles are not conscious - does this mean that they do not suffer? An important question.

"Man is not yet an ideal creature. At his present best many of his ways are so unpleasant that they are unmentionable in polite society, and so painful that he is compelled to pretend that pain is often a good."

George Bernard Shaw

In the big picture (we think) learning (if learning = movement towards happiness) never really occurs, in fact this is an illusion to keep us running on the treadmill and propagating our genes. Granted one can make choices that will usually make one more or less happy, but happiness never really comes - it's not something in our current design specifications. Our anhedonic homeostatic mechanisms make sure that one continues to strive as only a human being can.

This isn't to say that we think man should give up reason, education, cognitive discipline, and the like. Just that the true barrier to happiness must be eliminated at the biological level.

Thanks,
Sean

Sean,
Sorry I was not logged in previously.

No I don't mean that I would seek suffering.
I am merely pointing out the well known fact that a constant availability of a 'state of existence of something' almost ensures that we soon don't value it, realise it, or even seek it for others.

I would like to see an expansion on your position of 'created conciousness for gene propagation', which implies that consciousness can now be changed for better things on the assumption that gene propagation is adequately controlled by non-human factors.

The 'BSI Human is non-existent'. I merely used the idea as a concept based on the BSI which has standards for those things which do fall within its remit (non-human).
I was intending to demonstrate a worry that if abolitionism were adopted in a widespread fashion we would end up with a STANDARD HUMAN BEING (in the sense of equal happinesss for all only).

This is an interesting subject, but I suspect that there will be many views as people consider the implications!
I have anhedonia by the way, but am cheered to think it may become a thing of the past.

Valid concerns.

The key is designing the functional equivalents of aversive experience and informational sensitivity to one's environment while removing the pain and pleasure axis as a motivational factor. As an interim solution there is the possibility of encoding for gradients of bliss rather than the raw pain and suffering that we currently experience. Simply raising the hedonic setpoint would be a blessing for many, not only those with anhedonia.

Does this make any sense?

Sean

Yes, I agree there are many implications that must be addressed. We could after all, end up creating more suffering - such is the human condition. Rather than attempting to form a 10-point plan without possible reproach - we would rather interject the core value of moving towards the elimination of suffering as the prime objective of human endeavors. It will take sensibility and compassion to work out the myriad of problems technical and otherwise..... but what is the alternative?

It's possible that suffering could never be completely eliminated - time will tell. However, moving in that direction while at the same time making us better humans, is this a bad thing? How do we decide what makes us better? This will be something for us to decide collectively as we do currently.

Thanks,
Sean

With our present design, yes, pain has a fundamental role in determining one's behavior. People who don't feel any pain will die from neglect (lepers.)

We're talking about changing this fact.

Certainly not 8-)

We could do that right now if we wanted to. Wireheading could potentially make one a useless quivering mass of bliss - we already have this technology;

www.wireheading.com

We need to ask ourselves if suffering is really neccessary. Are you satisfied with this system of pain and reward that we have now? Is the hedonic treadmill conducive to happiness? It is really the best and only way to go?

In the old days, people used to think that surgery with anesthetics was morally wrong for the same reasons - that the suffering was a chance for "growth."

Inescapable pain results in learned helplessness;

http://www.opioids.com/enkephalinase/lhelplessness.html

Enhancing a person's ability to experience pleasure also enhances one's ability to learn from their circumstances. However, whatever is learned is still dependent on one's future hedonic state - even if a person is "a model citizen" a bout of long-term pain can reduce them to a sniveling, aggitated, helpless example of human frailty.

This frail system of learning should be replaced by a much more robust system of informational assimilation and attribution of value.

Preserving a system where learning depends on one's hedonic state leaves us open to making all the attributional errors that humans currently make, look at how many people voted for Bush

but we're not really talking about "inescapable" pain because the usefulness of pain in learning implies we're talking about "escapable" pain; i.e., that pain is a signal for us to change things. If we can't learn how to change things and end up stuck with "inescapable" pain, then certainly something should be done about that, but I would question the validity of the notion of "inescapable pain". All pain is escapable in theory; it's just a question of learning how to escape it in practice.

That still leaves us with the observation that, without pain, we have little motivation for learning how to change our circumstances for the better. Thus, the homeless drunk will have no motivation for bettering his circumstances because he's not experiencing any pain; the sick individual will not seek help because they feel no pain and thus will continue with their sickness.

It also means that other races could easily enslave this hypothetical "dumbed-down" happy race of humans because the humans wouldn't experience any pain from the enslavement and thus would not be motivated to change the situation and overthrow their enslavors.

insofar as suffering is an experience, the absence of that experience should not be construed as suffering or else that is equivalent to saying that both having and not having an experience of suffering is suffering. In other words, suffering implies having the experience of suffering. The absence of the experience of suffering implies a limitation in ones range of consciousness, but this is not experienced as suffering since we're assuming the absence of the experience of suffering in this case.

No, I meant the absence of the experience of suffering implies the absence of suffering. The need for the presence of experiences is derived in part from the meaning we acquire from having them.

Given our current design, yes, pain is very important in determining one's behavior.

We would like to change this fact, making pain optional.

Designing informational sensitivity to one's environment as well the ability to acquire new information and attribute value need not depend on one's position on the pain/pleasure axis.

The pain of living is very much inescapable at this time, not to mention chronic types of pain that there are no cures for.

I agree with all of this (for what it's worth.)

Also, the new technologies looming on the horizon due hold the promise of speading up the process (relatively.)

What's important for us to focus on are the ideological barriers to the successful advent of these technologies. Not to ignore ethical issues but to challenge the ideas of mankind that maintain that suffering should always exist.

I for one, would love to life without suffering. Not to mention the millions of Buddhists worldwide.

We do not suggest that one's experience be limited to bliss, just that suffering be eliminated. It is one possible approach to alter our pain/pleasure axis so that humans are motivated by gradients of bliss rather than the raw pain and temporary relief that we currently have - but this would only be an interim solution as suffering would still exist.

Just seeking pleasure would be a big waste in my thinking as well.

However, that is what we currently do. We're really just complex pleasure seeking animals.

What is it that makes a person seek meaningful experiences/understanding?

We believe that humankind would be benefited by freeing themselves from the pain/pleasure axis as well as our darwinian constitution. Then we would be better equipped to understand the universe and build a world based on our highest ideals.

but this is like saying that, because most people don't like the color red, that our experience of the color red should be eliminated. But eliminating aspects and qualities of conscious experience, you reduce the spectrum of consciousness. Thus, you are literally suggesting we seek to become more narrow-minded or consciously-limited.

I wonder what consciousness would need to understand, if not the causes of suffering or escapes from suffering

It doesn't matter if all the people in China wanted to end suffering, it still doesn't justify it. What's a Buddhist after all? Do all Buddhists want to end suffering in the manner you're suggesting? I doubt it. What Buddha essentially said was that our world is what we make of it. What we experience as suffering can mean many things depending on how we interpret the experience and depending on what we make of the experience.

to "Know thy Self". To understand the meaning of things, why they are as they are and so forth.

I would hypothesize that any being with sufficiently developed cognitive abilities and consciousness would be primarily driven to seek meaning and understanding. I know it's more complicated than this. Maybe the drive to meaning and understanding is derived from development of just certain cognitive abilities and domains of consciousness, which leaves open the question of the relevance of drives derived from the development of other cognitive abilities and domains of consciousness (manifesting, for example, in a will to power, or in a modified pleasure principle).

I think you have a valid concern, we should be careful not to limit ourselves too much.

I look at it this way: rather than eliminating the experience of the color red, we could observe it the way it is without our subjective qualification of whether we "like it" or not.

In my thinking, our pain/pleasure axis is severely consciousness-limiting, not to mention how much it influences our cognitive capacities.

This is something we Abolitionists would do well to keep in mind - that seeking pure bliss and limiting our perception and consciousness could limit our development.

We will need to develop an approach that doesn't make us vulnerable to domination, or remove the ability to expand our consciousness. No doubt there are many more serious concerns to be addressed.

such a state would certainly be beneficial in the 'war on suffering'

agreed, in a way.

By freeing from our pleasure/pain axis, you mean being able to control our pleasure/pain axis, which is all fine and dandy, but is also very dangerous because people would easily succumb and become addicted to over-amping their pleasure levels and would lose self-control.

that being said, should we seek to satisfy our will or to make it more insatiable? I'm inclined towards making it more insatiable. Screw satiety; It's boring. It's death. Life consists in striving, consists in suffering, and you should not regard satiety as in end in itself but merely the means onto more striving.

the above quote is a generalization. I know all life is not suffering (that would be sad indeed) but suffering is a core component of life, at least for me. In life you deal with the both the "good" and the "bad", and then some.