|
|
|
|
|
|
by Ari_Rahikkala
2921 days ago
|
|
|
I don't know. Maybe if you've been reading bad science fiction with immortal geniuses running around everywhere, it might seem that living to 120 and having an IQ of 130 is leaving a lot on the table, but when you compare those numbers to what we actually get, I think calling them "modest" is missing the point. Those aren't numbers that say "I'm more or less content with my lot", those are numbers that say you wish you were as smart as the smartest person you ever met, and that the papers wrote stories about your birthdays. They're an argument against the idea that transhumanism isn't something that people actually want. And of course, the implication is obvious: If everyone did on average live to 120 and get an IQ of 130 on our tests, then everyone would be wanting to live 200 years, and quite a few people would probably want an IQ of 160 on the old tests. That is, unless that was the point where people just switched to transhumanism as simplified humanism: Having the choice to live longer and to understand the universe better are probably always a good thing, regardless of how long you've lived and how much you understand. |
|
|
The goal of their study, however, was to see if it was true that when given the choice to have some attribute or quality of your life maximized with few limits would you choose the maximum. They say the choices were modest simply because in philosophical writings they often assume people will always choose the maximum if available. That is why they found this surprising and modest.