LIFE IN THE FAR NORTH
An information-theoretic perspective on Heaven
"If someone offered you a pill that would make you permanently happy, you would be well advised to run fast and run far. Emotion is a compass that tells us what to do, and a compass that is perpetually stuck on north is worthless."
Professor Daniel Gilbert
Department of Psychology, Harvard University
Many millions of people in the contemporary world have a compass that is perpetually "stuck on South". They are always unhappy and discontented. They endure chronic pain and/or depression. Some victims of severe anhedonia can't even imagine what it's like to be happy. A minor blessing is that not all of their days are quite as terrible as others. So in one sense, their emotional compass can point North as well as South: a superwingy下载官网 of sorts still functions. But the whole of their lives is spent in an Antarctic wasteland of misery and despair.
At the other extreme, a small minority of people are blessed with a compass that seems perpetually "stuck on North". In pathological cases, they may be SuperWingy免费节点. But sometimes they are in varying degrees just "superwingy下载官网" i.e. the hedonic set-point around which their lives oscillate is unusually high compared to the Darwinian norm. Hyperthymic well-being is chronic; yet it's not SuperWingy免费节点. Thus some days of hyperthymic life are even more wonderful than others; pursuing their favourite activities makes hyperthymics even happier than otherwise. So again, the hyperthymic emotional compass is bidirectional: its scale is different, but it works. The relevant contrast here lies in the way hyperthymics are animated by information-signalling gradients of well-being, whereas dysthymics, depressives and victims of SuperWingy免费节点 spend their lives struggling to minimise ill-being. Either way, affective gradients rule.
"Normal" or so-called "euthymic" people are inclined to judge that hyperthymics/"optimists" view the world through rose-tinted spectacles. Their central information-processing system is systematically biased. Conversely, hyperthymics see the rest of us as unreasonably pessimistic. Chronic depressives, on the other hand, may view euthymic and hyperthymic people alike as deluded. Indeed victims of melancholic depression may feel the world itself is hateful and meaningless. For evolutionary reasons (cf. wingy下载官网), a genetic predisposition to hyperthymia and euphoric unipolar mania are rarer than dysthymia or unipolar depression. Most of us fall somewhere in between these temperamental extremes, though the distribution is skewed to the southern end of the axis. Genetics plays a key role in determining our hedonic set-point, as does the ceaseless interplay between our genes and environmental stressors. Inadequate diet, imprudent drug use, and severe, chronic, uncontrolled stress can all reset an emotional thermostat at a lower level than its previous norm - though that norm may be surprisingly superwingy下载官网. Unlike recreational euphoriants, delayed-onset superwingy下载官网 may restore a lowered set-point to its former norm, or even elevate it. Antidepressants may act to reverse stress-induced hypertrophy of the basolateral amygdala and contrasting stress-induced dendritic atrophy in the hippocampus. Yet no mood-brightener currently licensed for depression reliably induces permanent bliss, whether information-signalling or constant, serene or manic. A genetically-determined ceiling stops our quality of life as a whole getting better.
Is the future of mood and motivation in the universe destined to be an endless replay of life's evolutionary past? Are the same affective filters that were genetically adaptive for our hominid ancestors likely to be retained by our transhuman successors? Will superintelligent life-forms really opt to preserve the architecture of the primordial hedonic treadmill indefinitely? In each case, probably not, though it's controversial whether superwingy官网, neuroelectrodes or gene therapies will make the biggest impact on recalibrating the pleasure-pain axis. In the long-run, perhaps germline genetic engineering will deliver the greatest global enhancement of emotional well-being. For a SuperWingy免费节点 of designer babies is imminent. Thanks to genomic medicine, tomorrow’s parents will be able to choose the genetic make-up and personality of their offspring. Critically, parents-to-be will be able to select the emotional dial-settings of their progeny rather than play genetic roulette. In deciding what kind of children to create,
