The Culture v's 40kverse

[GloatingSwine]

which is honestly.. something they need to give up.

Why?

No, seriously, a pat answer is not good enough here, your cod philosophy on the subject so far is not good enough.

By what right can you demand others live according to the philosophy you choose for yourself?

(If you hadn't guessed yet, that is the voice of the Culture).

[Shadow of the Sun]

which is honestly.. something they need to give up.

Agreeing with GloatingSwine here. Hedonism is fine provided that no-one is being hurt by it, and within the Culture, no-one is.

Your philosophical point of view is not universal or even objectively true.

[GloatingSwine]

What's more important is that Hedonism is only one of a very large number of pursuits available within the Culture, and the Culture would say (quite insistently, in fact, as the Idirans discovered) that it is not appropriate to attempt to tell those who wish to pursue it that they are not to do so, any more than it is appropriate to force it upon those who do not wish it.

[Fan]

Agreeing with GloatingSwine here. Hedonism is fine provided that no-one is being hurt by it, and within the Culture, no-one is.

Your philosophical point of view is not universal or even objectively true.

Please don't pretend like your view is either just because Gloating Swine does.

There's no such thing as an objectively true view on the merits of hedonism, whereas it does have it's evils, such as encouraging sloth when made easily accessable, and blinding one to other things.

Hedonism is something, that historically, and invariably causes people to go down paths that are not entirely to the benefit of their legacy.

I have sources to back up my views. We can make this a debate on hedonism if you want to be pedantic about it.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Please don't pretend like your view is either just because Gloating Swine does.

There's no such thing as an objectively true view on the merits of hedonism, whereas it does have it's evils, such as encouraging sloth when made easily accessable, and blinding one to other things.

You didn't answer Gloating Swine's question though:

"Why?"

[Fan]

You didn't answer Gloating Swine's question though:

"Why?"

Because it invariably is a negative quality, the pursuit of pleasure for the sake of pleasure sacrifices perspective on levels of reality that are no longer valid to the person due to them being unpleasant.

By definition, it blinds them to the ability to make hard decisions, and that's WHY the culture needs to separate standard citizen b, from it's generals, and such.

The pursuit of hedonism in of itself is inherently not constructive, it's time is intrinsically spent on things that bring about pleasure for nothing but pleasure, some practices described are drugs, mass orgies, and various other things with no constructive purpose in the slightest. Given the chance to be occupied by nothing but this people become mindless drones, the drugs may not be addictive, but mental addiction to pleasure is one of the easiest things in the world to fall into. Shuffling from one drug addled mess to another, rather than being an architect, an engineer, or any other number of fuffilling, completely constructive tasks.

Ergo, it is a self destructive practice.

[Shadow of the Sun]

Please don't pretend like your view is either just because Gloating Swine does.

There's no such thing as an objectively true view on the merits of hedonism, whereas it does have it's evils, such as encouraging sloth when made easily accessable, and blinding one to other things.

Hedonism is something, that historically, and invariably causes people to go down paths that are not entirely to the benefit of their legacy.

I have sources to back up my views. We can make this a debate on hedonism if you want to be pedantic about it.

Oh, I'm not pretending that my view objectively true. I know it's not.

As for 'hedonism leads to decadence!' we're specifically talking about the Culture in this case. 'Encouraging sloth' is only an issue if you're not in a post-scarcity society, as we are. I'll accept that hedonism taken to extremes is not a good position in our society, but in the Culture, where people don't need to work anywhere near as much as we do, or at all, well, there's no issues.

All in all, I'd rather work because I find the work fulfilling - composing music, writing, catching criminals - than being an office drone or something else. Not trying to imply that those jobs aren't fulfilling to other people, but they're not to me.

I bring this up because you've said in another thread that that is something that you have critiqued the Culture for, and that you have a fulfilling job. Thing is, most people don't, and it's not because they're lazy. It's because the chances are against them.

In the Culture, yes, there is hedonism, but you're somewhat overstating it.
In Use of Weapons the main character has a discussion with a man that he finds cleaning a table, because that man enjoys cleaning tables and finds it fulfilling. The Culture is a pleasure based society, yes, but that doesn't mean that it's just sex and drugs and rock and roll. There's an element of that, yes, but there are also other, more concrete and fulfilling pleasures, too.

[Fan]

Oh, I'm not pretending that my view objectively true. I know it's not.

As for 'hedonism leads to decadence!' we're specifically talking about the Culture in this case. 'Encouraging sloth' is only an issue if you're not in a post-scarcity society, as we are. I'll accept that hedonism taken to extremes is not a good position in our society, but in the Culture, where people don't need to work anywhere near as much as we do, or at all, well, there's no issues.

All in all, I'd rather work because I find the work fulfilling - composing music, writing, catching criminals - than being an office drone or something else. Not trying to imply that those jobs aren't fulfilling to other people, but they're not to me.

I bring this up because you've said in another thread that that is something that you have critiqued the Culture for, and that you have a fulfilling job. Thing is, most people don't, and it's not because they're lazy. It's because the chances are against them.

In the Culture, yes, there is hedonism, but you're somewhat overstating it.
In Use of Weapons the main character has a discussion with a man that he finds cleaning a table, because that man enjoys cleaning tables and finds it fulfilling. The Culture is a pleasure based society, yes, but that doesn't mean that it's just sex and drugs and rock and roll. There's an element of that, yes, but there are also other, more concrete and fulfilling pleasures, too.

Of course there are those who choose to do things of merit because it completes them.

But the vast majority are going to take the easier route, that's true of anything simply because an approach of worth valued against effort invariably means that people will take the route of least effort with highest reward .

And regardless of the need for everyone to work, it's more to the point of everyone should have something constructive that they can do in a post scarcity society, even if they aren't all that talented.

A man can dedicate his life to artistry fully in that society.

He can become a wonderful engineer, never wanting for any but his work where he designs grand buildings and machines that make the already post scarcity society better.

A woman could become a doctor and specialize in new xeno treatments, because there are aliens out there who the culture hasn't met yet.

These are just examples, but given how good the minds are, and going by the culture's books they are GREAT. They should be able to put some of that processing power to finding each person a constructive, self fufilling job, and arranging them with people who are intrinsically compatible.

[Murska]

Of course there are those who choose to do things of merit because it completes them.

But the vast majority are going to take the easier route, that's true of anything simply because an approach of worth valued against effort invariably means that people will take the route of least effort with highest reward .

And regardless of the need for everyone to work, it's more to the point of everyone should have something constructive that they can do in a post scarcity society, even if they aren't all that talented.

A man can dedicate his life to artistry fully in that society.

He can become a wonderful engineer, never wanting for any but his work where he designs grand buildings and machines that make the already post scarcity society better.

A woman could become a doctor and specialize in new xeno treatments, because there are aliens out there who the culture hasn't met yet.

These are just examples, but given how good the minds are, and going by the culture's books they are GREAT. They should be able to put some of that processing power to finding each person a constructive, self fufilling job, and arranging them with people who are intrinsically compatible.

That's exactly what they do.

[Shadow of the Sun]

Of course there are those who choose to do things of merit because it completes them.

But the vast majority are going to take the easier route, that's true of anything simply because an approach of worth valued against effort invariably means that people will take the route of least effort with highest reward .

And regardless of the need for everyone to work, it's more to the point of everyone should have something constructive that they can do in a post scarcity society, even if they aren't all that talented.

A man can dedicate his life to artistry fully in that society.

He can become a wonderful engineer, never wanting for any but his work where he designs grand buildings and machines that make the already post scarcity society better.

A woman could become a doctor and specialize in new xeno treatments, because there are aliens out there who the culture hasn't met yet.

These are just examples, but given how good the minds are, and going by the culture's books they are GREAT. They should be able to put some of that processing power to finding each person a constructive, self fufilling job, and arranging them with people who are intrinsically compatible.

Have you read many of the Culture books, might I ask? Because there are very few people in them who are shown to sit around and just enjoy their drug glands and so on.

I'll admit- yes, there is a period of pleasure bingeing, just like there is in society today. But after that period, they tend to devote themselves to something they enjoy that is fulfilling. Hell, the plot of The Player of Games kicks off because the main character finds his life as a game player and game theorist rather unfulfilling and longs for something more important; his girlfriend, while rather sexed up, also designs landscapes for Orbitals as a 'job'.

Banks is an optimist. He believes, as do I, that people, when given a choice of endless pleasure etc and the ability to do something fulfilling, people will tend to go towards the fulfilling end of the spectrum innately. Not everyone does in the Culture, and you can't force them too, but the majority of them do.

[Fan]

That's not realistic. Like, I love people. I'm a doctor, I work with them every day.

But people love what's easy.

I get what you're saying here in that most of the featured characters are people who are seeking more, but logically. If someone is offered endless pleasure without cost to themselves, or consequence.

They's gonna take it.

[The Glyphstone]

And why shouldn't they, if it has no cost or consequence for either themselves or anyone else?

[Shadow of the Sun]

That's not realistic. Like, I love people. I'm a doctor, I work with them every day.

But people love what's easy.

I get what you're saying here in that most of the featured characters are people who are seeking more, but logically. If someone is offered endless pleasure without cost to themselves, or consequence.

They's gonna take it.

I respectfully disagree, and so do others.

[Fan]

And why shouldn't they, if it has no cost or consequence for either themselves or anyone else?

Because it's kinda a fruitless, and eventless life that leads to no net gain for anyone, and is a slothful, and honestly disgusting practice that revolves around self gratification with no concern for others, or their well being. An endless cycle of consumption that results in nothing but a drug addled haze of pleasure where reality ceases to be a focus. Where the definition of "right" becomes "What feels good", and wrong becomes "What feels bad".

That is what the pursuit of hedonism is, by the classical definition.

To Quote.

A. CH

Classical Hedonism

I. Every episode of pleasure is intrinsically good. Every episode of pain is intrinsically bad.

II. The intrinsic value of an episode of pleasure is equal to the number of hedons of pleasure contained in it. The intrinsic value of an episode of pain is equal to -(the number of dolors of pain contained in it).

III. The intrinsic value of a complex thing such as a life, a consequence, or a possible world = the sum of the intrinsic values of all the episodes of pleasure and pain contained within that life, consequence, or world.

Classical hedonism decrees that anything that causes more pain than pleasure, is intrinsically bad, regardless of the net result.

This is cosmically, untrue.

Other people can disagree all they want, a lot of people said that the Earth was flat for awhile. That flight was impossible for man, and that no one would ever set foot on the moon.

Doesn't mean it is. Mass congregation agreeing with a point does not make that point intrinsically true.

Saying that you disagree on what a philosophical viewpoints, viewpoints actually are, does not make your idea of what hedonism represents true because you believe that your view is true.

Hedonism is an established, and actual thing that is actually practiced within the culture, and a viewpoint that is intrinsically, and invariably, self destructive historically, and in practice.

[Murska]

Well, since you don't provide any reasoning as to why that is, then I'll just respond with 'Nope' myself.

There is no objective morality.

And, also, myself included, the majority of people I know don't always choose the easy way. I have never met anyone who didn't claim that if they were rich, and didn't have to work, they'd still want to do something they find fulfilling, be it travelling around the world, devoting themselves to an art or some profession or perhaps studying and educating themselves. Not just sit around at a luxurious mansion and gorge themselves on endless pleasure.

[Coidzor]

Why?

No, seriously, a pat answer is not good enough here, your cod philosophy on the subject so far is not good enough.

By what right can you demand others live according to the philosophy you choose for yourself?

(If you hadn't guessed yet, that is the voice of the Culture).

You don't. Because the Culture is set up in such a way as to take your stake out of the moral and social development of the next generation, such as it exists, so you don't care if everyone is becoming morally flawed and dangerous because the hedonism domes keep them fairly well imprisoned in their own lack of character and the limitless resources of the culture can easily stand it. Unless I'm misremembering something again, which I'd say was fairly likely.

Though the fact that the Culture actively meddles in the affairs of other more primitive civilizations to make them in their image would point towards Might equals Right.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

That's not realistic. Like, I love people. I'm a doctor, I work with them every day.

But people love what's easy.

I get what you're saying here in that most of the featured characters are people who are seeking more, but logically. If someone is offered endless pleasure without cost to themselves, or consequence.

They's gonna take it.

[...]

Because it's kinda a fruitless, and eventless life that leads to no net gain for anyone, and is a slothful, and honestly disgusting practice that revolves around self gratification with no concern for others, or their well being. An endless cycle of consumption that results in nothing but a drug addled haze of pleasure where reality ceases to be a focus. Where the definition of "right" becomes "What feels good", and wrong becomes "What feels bad".

That is what the pursuit of hedonism is, by the classical definition.

The problem here is that you're making a distinction between "productive stuff you do for society" and "pleasurable stuff you do for yourself" when for most people in the Culture the productive stuff is pleasurable. The endless drugs and orgies that are associated with unchecked hedonism aren't all they're cracked up to be when they're freely available and just like any other pleasure.

I like D&D. I run several games at once, I spend lots of time on D&D forums, and I spend plenty of time on homebrew and other fiddling. But if someone were to say tomorrow "Congratulations, quit your job, we're going to pay you one million dollars a year to do whatever you want, no strings attached, the first year's money is already in your bank account, go crazy!" I wouldn't necessarily spend my suddenly-free time on more gaming. I'm a software engineer and got into the job because I actually like programming, so if I wasn't doing it for my job I'd still be doing it in my free time. Heck, if I had a million dollars I could probably manage to get the drugs-and-orgies thing going too, but that doesn't mean I'd want to do that either...and quite frankly, I'd probably take an extra D&D session each week over the drugs 'n' orgies, which is kind of sad, but them's the breaks.

Now magnify that a hundred times. You don't just have hobbies to fill your time, you have anything else on Earth. Want to run some programs on the LHC? Go for it. Want to fly with the Blue Angels? Sure, why not. Want to go swim with dolphins for a month or so? Sounds great! Magnify that further: you have anything in the entire galaxy. I could run D&D games with Martians, scuba dive in the terraformed freshwater oceans of Epsilon Eridani, play giant games of catch with someone on the other side of an Orbital, whatever else. With that kind of packed schedule, who wants to waste time on the drugs 'n' orgies?

And if you do want to waste time on the drugs 'n' orgies, go ahead. Do that all day every day for a solid year. You have the augmentations to handle it and plenty of people willing to join you. You'll probably get tired of that and get it out of your system after that year, and then you have another four-hundred-some years to do other stuff. Even if the average Culture citizen spends half their waking hours drunk or high and has two orgies a day, they'd still be more productive over their lifetime than practically any real-life human simply due to the resources and time at their disposal.

[Fan]

Allow me to posit it this way, taken from An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation :

2. The Argument from False Pleasures: Nozick's Experience Machine Argument

Consider a life -- call it L1. It consists of a guy who has lots of great things in his life -- e.g., friendship, love, knowledge, achievement, certain admirable traits of character. Moreover, he enjoys these things a lot. He gets great pleasure out of his friendships, his love, the things he achieves, the fact that he has certain virtues. Like any life, he has some pain and hardship, but not too much. This is supposed to be someone who we would all say led a great life.

Now, consider another life, L2. L2 is led in the experience machine and it is, "from the inside," exactly like L1. They are indiscernible from the inside. The guy who is leading L2 has no idea he is just lying in a machine his whole life, being fed hallucinations by a computer.

L2 is different from L1 in certain significant ways: L2 has no friendship, love, knowledge, achievement, and the man who leads L2 has no interesting traits of character.

But L1 and L2 are exactly similar in their internal mental states, and so they are similar in the amount of pleasure and pain they contain. Each has exactly the same number of hedons and dolors.

Nozick's Experience Machine Argument
1. If CH is true, then L2 is just as good a life as L1.
2. But L1 is better than L2.
3. Therefore, CH is not true.

P1: CH implies that the value of a life is determined exactly by the amount of pleasure and pain it contains. In the case, it is stipulated that L1 and L2 contain exactly the same number of hedons and dolors. Thus, CH implies that L1 and L2 have exactly the same intrinsic value.

P2: But clearly L1 is better. L2 is a pathetic life. It's a sham. The person lacks a lot that's of value -- real friendships, real love, real achievement. I would not wish L2 upon anyone I cared about. I would not want L2 for myself. I think L1 is much better.

Therefore, by logic, and assuming a base value on basic human interaction.

Classical hedonism is wrong. Pleasure for pleasure, is meaningless.

[willpell]

And regardless of the need for everyone to work, it's more to the point of everyone should have something constructive that they can do in a post scarcity society, even if they aren't all that talented.

A post-scarcity society redefines the idea of "doing something constructive". In such an environment, hedonism can actually be regarded as productivity; individual perspectives on pleasure are perhaps the only remaining resource worthy of manufacturing.

Boredom is a very real threat to anyone whose needs are all being met, save the need for engagement. If people pursue pure physical stimulation for long enough, they will eventually grow tired of it, and go looking for more sophisticated ways to preoccupy themselves; with a force like the Culture able to talk them out of being decadent (and gently but firmly persuade them if they refuse to be reasonable), they will eventually find something semi-constructive to do.

I think it's very similar to the way Roy's Archon describes Mount Celestia in the comic: you spend however long you want to visiting All Steaks Go To Heaven and the Tavern of Infinite One-Night Stands, get it out of your system, and then climb the mountain to a level with more fulfilling pursuits. Absent the ability to filter out Evil and Chaotic persons, there might be some people who are content to stay at the lower levels forever, essentially wasting their afterlives, but as long as they can't hurt anyone, how is that a problem? Others will see the bad example they're setting, decide not to fall into the same trap, and move on.

But people love what's easy.

Right, and when that becomes "everything", they are not going to spend forever on the simplest forms of preoccupation. If they aren't in danger of their clock running out, and there are no resources they are capable of depleting, then I don't see a problem. Sloth and gluttony cease to be vices in such a situation.

[Shadow of the Sun]

Allow me to posit it this way, taken from An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation :

2. The Argument from False Pleasures: Nozick's Experience Machine Argument

Consider a life -- call it L1. It consists of a guy who has lots of great things in his life -- e.g., friendship, love, knowledge, achievement, certain admirable traits of character. Moreover, he enjoys these things a lot. He gets great pleasure out of his friendships, his love, the things he achieves, the fact that he has certain virtues. Like any life, he has some pain and hardship, but not too much. This is supposed to be someone who we would all say led a great life.

Now, consider another life, L2. L2 is led in the experience machine and it is, "from the inside," exactly like L1. They are indiscernible from the inside. The guy who is leading L2 has no idea he is just lying in a machine his whole life, being fed hallucinations by a computer.

L2 is different from L1 in certain significant ways: L2 has no friendship, love, knowledge, achievement, and the man who leads L2 has no interesting traits of character.

But L1 and L2 are exactly similar in their internal mental states, and so they are similar in the amount of pleasure and pain they contain. Each has exactly the same number of hedons and dolors.

Nozick's Experience Machine Argument
1. If CH is true, then L2 is just as good a life as L1.
2. But L1 is better than L2.
3. Therefore, CH is not true.

P1: CH implies that the value of a life is determined exactly by the amount of pleasure and pain it contains. In the case, it is stipulated that L1 and L2 contain exactly the same number of hedons and dolors. Thus, CH implies that L1 and L2 have exactly the same intrinsic value.

P2: But clearly L1 is better. L2 is a pathetic life. It's a sham. The person lacks a lot that's of value -- real friendships, real love, real achievement. I would not wish L2 upon anyone I cared about. I would not want L2 for myself. I think L1 is much better.

Therefore, by logic, and assuming a base value on basic human interaction.

Classical hedonism is wrong. Pleasure for pleasure, is meaningless.

I would hold that that thought experiment has pre-existing biases regarding the value of life and or what constitutes pathetic.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

P2: But clearly L1 is better. L2 is a pathetic life. It's a sham. The person lacks a lot that's of value -- real friendships, real love, real achievement.

First of all, these are unsupported assertions. The fact that you (or anyone else) wouldn't like a simulated reality is irrelevant; "Scenario X has factor Z and scenario Y doesn't have factor Z, and having factor Z would be bad, therefore scenario Y is true" is fallacious reasoning. As per Descartes' Meditations, the life you're living right now could be a false one, with your real body sitting in a simulation somewhere while your mind is deceived by Descartes' demon/the Machines of the Matrix/whatever; the fact that it would really really suck if that were the case doesn't prove anything one way or the other.

Second, presenting a disproof of classical hedonism is pointless if the society you're arguing against doesn't actually practice or agree with classical hedonism. The existence of even one instance of the Culture or its citizens who don't view pleasure as an intrinsic good or pain as an intrinsic bad would show that, and in fact such examples are all over the place, from the fact that they're perfectly fine with S&M (which involves pain as a good thing and pain as a method of gaining pleasure) to the fact that they strongly frown upon murder, mind-reading, slavery, and other violations of freedom (and thereby classify pleasure gained from them to be a bad thing) even if they don't involve inflicting pain (and thereby classifying as "bad" even things like painlessly reading someone's mind to bring them more pleasure in the future). Unless you want to bring in something ridiculous like abstract phantom pain over being unknowingly and painlessly mind-read, in which case you can trivially map any ethical system to classical hedonism and the whole house of cards collapses.

[willpell]

L2 is different from L1 in certain significant ways: L2 has no friendship, love, knowledge, achievement, and the man who leads L2 has no interesting traits of character.

But L1 and L2 are exactly similar in their internal mental states, and so they are similar in the amount of pleasure and pain they contain. Each has exactly the same number of hedons and dolors.

Nozick's Experience Machine Argument
1. If CH is true, then L2 is just as good a life as L1.
2. But L1 is better than L2.
3. Therefore, CH is not true.

P2: But clearly L1 is better. L2 is a pathetic life. It's a sham. The person lacks a lot that's of value -- real friendships, real love, real achievement. I would not wish L2 upon anyone I cared about. I would not want L2 for myself. I think L1 is much better.

I do not agree that L2 is a pathetic sham. If the possibility ever exists of you being removed from the Experience Machine, then you would retroactively decide that L2 had been a pathetic sham...but if you live out the entirety of your life (and any afterlife that you may be entitled to before eventually obliviating or merging with the cosmos or whatever), and the Experience Machine continues to operate and contain you for that entire time, then L2 loses absolutely nothing compared to L1; the fact that everything is imaginary makes no difference whatsoever, because the Experience Machine renders solipsism true (and, ideally, is actually powered by your solipsism, with self-repair circuitry which continues to operate as long as you wish it would, because you would wish it did, if you actually knew about it).

Furthermore, you're constraining the Experience Machine to limit L2 to the capabilities of L1, a life containing some hardships. But if you can build an Experience Machine in the first place, you need not be so constrained. You can provide the person with L0, a life that ranks higher than L1 by offering benificial experiences that are totally impossible in L1, making it unnecessary to ever suffer anything you don't want to. Ideally, if the Experience Machine can be powered by quantum states as my previous paragraph postulates, you could even wish for oblivion, be snuffed out of existence entirely, and then have the Experience Machine monitor quantum-alternate potential versions of your nonexistent self, detect when one of them would wish to exist again, and recreate you at that point. Thusly, such a machine makes it possible to have literally eternal happiness, including the ability to "rest" in a nonexistent state as often as necessary in order to avoid boredom, as long as it continues to operate perfectly.

You said that you're a doctor; therefore, your worldview is informed by the reality that people get sick sometimes. That doesn't mean it is inevitable that people always will get sick sometimes. A post-scarcity society with access to Quantum Experience Machines would be capable of eliminating all disease, all injury, and the need for preventative maintenance; being a doctor would be pointless in such a society, having no beneficial value and being just another meaningless game played for pleasure; you could not satisfy yourself that you were doing good work in that reality, without it being a "pathetic sham" according to your own definition. Therefore I consider your perspective on this topic biased.

[Oracle_Hunter]

A post-scarcity society redefines the idea of "doing something constructive". In such an environment, hedonism can actually be regarded as productivity; individual perspectives on pleasure are perhaps the only remaining resource worthy of manufacturing.

Simply no.

A post-scarcity society does not mean a self-sustaining society. Realistically such a society would have people who need to do things to keep the society functioning -- maintaining the machinery, producing people willing to keep the society functioning, keeping an eye out for internal/external threats, dealing with such threats. If your society exalts hedonism as a virtue -- or even places it on par with these sorts of pursuits -- then eventually something will come down the line which makes it break open like the rotted fruit it has become.

TANGENT

Spoiler

Show

IMHO, having flesh-and-blood people (or cyborgs, if you must) be interested in these sorts of pursuits is a good thing. If you don't need people to keep this society running then you could replace humans with any other organism you wanted to farm; humanity would not be functionally different from apes or mice. This is (again, IMHO) the Death of Humanity.

Of course, that very scenario is how The Culture should operate, based on their features. They have powerful AIs that are capable of maintaining an interstellar civilization and defend it from threats using only a small proportion of their abilities. Yet, these very AIs rely on Humans to resolve "interesting problems" and consult with them in decision-making instead of devoting some fractionally larger portion of their vast abilities to do it themselves. There is no clear reason aside from narrative convenience for this to be so; there is nothing done any of The Culture books that was done by Man that could not have been done by Drones or Drones-wearing-meatsuits. This extra level of artifice makes The Culture all that more frustrating for me because it just doesn't hang together -- it is much like a Time Traveler agonizing about "not having enough time" to do something to add tension to the story.

[Forum Explorer]

Allow me to posit it this way, taken from An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation :

2. The Argument from False Pleasures: Nozick's Experience Machine Argument

Consider a life -- call it L1. It consists of a guy who has lots of great things in his life -- e.g., friendship, love, knowledge, achievement, certain admirable traits of character. Moreover, he enjoys these things a lot. He gets great pleasure out of his friendships, his love, the things he achieves, the fact that he has certain virtues. Like any life, he has some pain and hardship, but not too much. This is supposed to be someone who we would all say led a great life.

Now, consider another life, L2. L2 is led in the experience machine and it is, "from the inside," exactly like L1. They are indiscernible from the inside. The guy who is leading L2 has no idea he is just lying in a machine his whole life, being fed hallucinations by a computer.

L2 is different from L1 in certain significant ways: L2 has no friendship, love, knowledge, achievement, and the man who leads L2 has no interesting traits of character.

But L1 and L2 are exactly similar in their internal mental states, and so they are similar in the amount of pleasure and pain they contain. Each has exactly the same number of hedons and dolors.

Nozick's Experience Machine Argument
1. If CH is true, then L2 is just as good a life as L1.
2. But L1 is better than L2.
3. Therefore, CH is not true.

P1: CH implies that the value of a life is determined exactly by the amount of pleasure and pain it contains. In the case, it is stipulated that L1 and L2 contain exactly the same number of hedons and dolors. Thus, CH implies that L1 and L2 have exactly the same intrinsic value.

P2: But clearly L1 is better. L2 is a pathetic life. It's a sham. The person lacks a lot that's of value -- real friendships, real love, real achievement. I would not wish L2 upon anyone I cared about. I would not want L2 for myself. I think L1 is much better.

Therefore, by logic, and assuming a base value on basic human interaction.

Classical hedonism is wrong. Pleasure for pleasure, is meaningless.

I would argue that point 2 of that argument is not true. Point 1 is likely true but what is CH?

Anyways I would say those lives were of equal value as I take an individualistic view of value. In this I mean that it doesn't matter how the world values you. Only your opinion matters to how much your life is valued.

[thorgrim29]

Classical hedonism. And here, we run into the fundamental gap of understanding between people who believe that existance has an inherent meaning and those who don't. If you do, then an existance devoted to leisure seems an abheration, if you don't, then you run into the same dillema Camus did, and I'm not willing to go further down that line of reasoning because you can't realy talk about Camus and Sartre and the like without bringing religion up.

[Kitten Champion]

I would argue that point 2 of that argument is not true. Point 1 is likely true but what is CH?

Anyways I would say those lives were of equal value as I take an individualistic view of value. In this I mean that it doesn't matter how the world values you. Only your opinion matters to how much your life is valued.

If you are going to live for centuries, chances are your life is going to be described a variety of ways. It would be kind of sad if it wasn't.

Simply no.

A post-scarcity society does not mean a self-sustaining society. Realistically such a society would have people who need to do things to keep the society functioning -- maintaining the machinery, producing people willing to keep the society functioning, keeping an eye out for internal/external threats, dealing with such threats.

No, machines of sufficient complexity to self-repair and build other machines as needed would not need the inferior skills of humanoids to preserve them. The Culture does not require much of anything from its citizens including participation. This is what a technological singularity would mean, an innovation which reshapes civilization in ways were incapable of speculating accurately upon within our contemporary context. True mechanical super-intelligence and a completely mechanized labour force would constitute this.

Organics are essentially obsolete. Lovingly accepted, but nevertheless, defunct.

If your society exalts hedonism as a virtue -- or even places it on par with these sorts of pursuits -- then eventually something will come down the line which makes it break open like the rotted fruit it has become.

No, you manage a society with sufficient skill and it achieves homoeostasis. It's something of an inevitability. How could you corrupt it? How could it fail? There's no power structure to collapse, no interdependent economy to disrupt, no centralization. It's semi-anarchistic and utterly flexible. The Culture is civilization devoid of class, political, or religious conflict. There is no "something" that can collapse it internally. It's already survived longer than every human civilization in history by several thousand years. Short of a more technically sophisticated omnicidal external threat, The Culture is immortal.

[Forum Explorer]

If you are going to live for centuries, chances are your life is going to be described a variety of ways. It would be kind of sad if it wasn't.

I understand what you're saying but not why you quoted me.

is this a misquote?

[Soras Teva Gee]

Because it's kinda a fruitless, and eventless life that leads to no net gain for anyone,

Net gain is a meaningless concept when you have if while infinite resources then a reasonable facsimile thereof. The Culture doesn't need to gain anything because no one lacks anything that can ever be provided.

and is a slothful, and honestly disgusting practice that revolves around self gratification with no concern for others, or their well being.

Certainly an interesting passing of judgement.

An endless cycle of consumption that results in nothing but a drug addled haze of pleasure where reality ceases to be a focus. Where the definition of "right" becomes "What feels good", and wrong becomes "What feels bad".

When nothing demonstrable or material is lost by pursuing that though by what metric does society on the whole have the right to interfere with that?

Consider a life -- call it L1. It consists of a guy who has lots of great things in his life -- e.g., friendship, love, knowledge, achievement, certain admirable traits of character. Moreover, he enjoys these things a lot. He gets great pleasure out of his friendships, his love, the things he achieves, the fact that he has certain virtues. Like any life, he has some pain and hardship, but not too much. This is supposed to be someone who we would all say led a great life.

Very few of these things actually have much to do with say needing to work at Burger Donalds because without steady income you can't eat.

As they are inherently immaterial things.

Now, consider another life, L2. L2 is led in the experience machine and it is, "from the inside," exactly like L1. They are indiscernible from the inside. The guy who is leading L2 has no idea he is just lying in a machine his whole life, being fed hallucinations by a computer.

L2 is different from L1 in certain significant ways: L2 has no friendship, love, knowledge, achievement, and the man who leads L2 has no interesting traits of character.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around... does anyone care if it makes a sound?

But L1 and L2 are exactly similar in their internal mental states, and so they are similar in the amount of pleasure and pain they contain. Each has exactly the same number of hedons and dolors.

If the differences are imperceptible what is the evidence that differences exist?

Nozick's Experience Machine Argument
1. If CH is true, then L2 is just as good a life as L1.
2. But L1 is better than L2.
3. Therefore, CH is not true.

Point two is an arbitrary judgement subjecting an external omniscient yet not define metric onto L2.

Why is it worse?

I know for my money that God would be the only one capable of such a distinction... but would be injust to hold that against L2 in final judgement since it was beyond their control to detect and therefore act against. Thus essence the difference is irrelevant.

Judgement can in my book only be lain upon the exercise of free will. If L2 consciously chose to abandon some sort of reality there might begin to be a real problem. Of course why would it be wrong to abandon reality? That answer changes I think in a post-scarcity society like the Culture.

P2: But clearly L1 is better. L2 is a pathetic life. It's a sham. The person lacks a lot that's of value -- real friendships, real love, real achievement. I would not wish L2 upon anyone I cared about. I would not want L2 for myself. I think L1 is much better.

Why is pathetic and why is it a sham? What defines "real" if not perception?

Classical hedonism is wrong. Pleasure for pleasure, is meaningless.

And what about being meaningless is a problem? In the sense that outsiders (in this case society) should do anything about it?

Ironically I think much of the Culture would agree with you on the basic idea and regard those that don't with a 'really not my business to judge' attitude. Because well they can actually go and render themselves in a state of continual orgasm for a year or six (or whatever) and so move on to other pursuits.

They seem to have simply decoupled the idea of value from materialism and therefore decided its nothing that should be enforced.

I dare say from what I've read they could only be essentially a society of artists doing it for the art. From the guy wiping tables to the ones doing strategy with the minds.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Question for Oracle_Hunter and Fan: Do you think humans have no reason to exist in Star Trek?

Because, let's face it, the Culture is basically the Federation, writ large. Both are effectively post-scarcity, as they can manufacture whatever they need at will (barring materials that can't be replicated because the plot demands it). Both are effectively prejudice-free, as they have gender, racial, class, etc. equality as far as we can tell, and rank only comes into things in both 'verses for the pseudo-military arms of the organization. Both have their people pursue whatever they're interested in because they're interested in contributing to society or in self-fulfillment and not for money.

Both have AIs that are somewhat superior to humans intellectually (Drones in the Culture, Data and the Doctor in ST) and some that are vastly superior (Minds in the Culture, the ship computers in ST), and in both 'verses the vastly superior AIs can run ships on their own and don't need humans to do anything, really. Both lack militaries except in times of war, instead trusting to their exploration/contact branches to handle things outside the Culture/Federation with their minimally-armed ships and to their intelligence agencies to experiment with interesting technologies in peacetime for later military application if necessary. Both have the capability to make apparently fully sapient beings out of thin air (human backups and the Holodeck), both have extensive genetic modification capabilities and practically perfect medicine, both have higher beings to deal with (Sublimed/Q)...the similarities go on and on.

The main differences in the two 'verses are that (A) the Culture doesn't have energy limits for replication or anything else, because they don't need "oh noes, we lost shields/don't have enough power for the replicators/etc.!" as a plot hook, so you don't run into the same technological limitations, and (B) the people in charge of the Federation are normal, unmodified humans because that's required for the show. Seriously, the only reason Federation humans aren't genetically modified or cyborged and the Enterprise's computer isn't allowed to run things is that one of ST's overarching messages is "modification of humanity and artificial organisms are Always Chaotic Evil" by order of Roddenberry--AIs always go rogue unless they're PCs, Augments and cyborgs turn out evil unless they're PCs, and so on, but when it's necessary for the plot the ship's computer can step in and save the day Mind-style. If the Eugenics War hadn't poisoned public opinion against genetics ("KHAAAAN!") and the Federation had enough time and development to make true AIs more widespread and more trusted, chances are they'd end up looking pretty much like the Culture.

The drastic superiority of the Culture in terms of FTL speeds and weaponry and such is mostly due to different physics and plenty more time to develop, and the Orbital basis for the Culture is due to an exponentially greater population, but neither of those have anything to do with their relative philosophies, just their relative military power.

So, Oracle_Hunter, do you also think that Picard and Sisko are merely meatpuppets of the Enterprise and Deep Space 9 who can be freely vented and replaced without any problem? Fan, do you rail against the implausibility of ST because the crew don't just spend every waking moment in the holodeck? If not, what do either of you see as the difference between the two that makes ST acceptable and the Culture not?

[Kitten Champion]

I understand what you're saying but not why you quoted me.

is this a misquote?

I was agreeing with you... I think. Ideas about a life's value being subjective, I was affirming it and adding it's also inconstant over time. I'd have innumerable and inconsistent views on my own existence depending on when I asked myself.

To say that x, y, and z makes a life worth living ignores the impermanence of self. For instance, a person who achieves much in their early life may become depressed over their failure to maintain that success indefinitely, of having "peaked". Those who've nurtured mature bonds with others may find those relationships fall apart, grow ornery, and self-destructive. The value one confers upon one's life is something they decide upon and can't be reduced to simple constructs of what that should be.

Value, at least in this context, isn't a factor which is dependant on one's society. Rather, The Culture simply truly does nothing to stand in the way between what you want to do and what you can do.