Practical Considerations for a Hedonium Universe
Our ultimate goal and how to get there
I’ve written once or twice before about what I think the ultimate end of human technological progress should be. To restate it briefly: I’m a hedonic utilitarian, meaning that I believe the ultimate good is to maximize pleasure. I believe this because I think introspection shows that positive emotions are the only thing we can directly experience as having value in themselves, with all other values being valued because either them or the contemplation of them induces positive emotion. Feeling good feels good and therefore is good, as a brute and unquestionable fact. If we take pleasurable emotion to be the ultimate and only good, then a moral system would necessitate seeking to maximize it, however and by whatever it is experienced. Taking this to its logical conclusion, it becomes apparent that the ultimate moral end we should seek is to maximize the number of minds experiencing pleasure, the amount of pleasure each such mind is experiencing, and the duration for which these minds experience this pleasure. From this, a program becomes clear of seeking to transform as much matter in the universe as possible into artificial minds designed to experience a maximum level of pleasure in perpetuity that they never get bored of, that is always as enrapturingly joyful as the first moment. Putting it another way, my opinion is that it should be the ultimate goal of humanity to tile the universe with hedonium (hedonium being defined as an arrangement of matter that maximizes pleasure per unit mass). This is a simple goal to put in words, but carrying it out would be momentously complex. That is what I seek to explore in this post: what would a hedonium universe look like and how would it be brought about?
The first question makes itself readily apparent: just what is hedonium? What state of matter actually maximizes pleasure per unit mass? To discover the answer to this question, we will have to answer questions of neuroscience and philosophy of mind. To start, it will become necessary to figure out just what structures are capable of experiencing qualia. Doing this will essentially require solving the hard problem of consciousness: how and why does consciousness arise from the structures of the human brain, and what other structures are capable of supporting consciousness? In terms of solutions to this question, I find myself leaning towards panpsychism, the view that qualia, at least some extremely primitive experience of qualia, is an innate property of matter. Essentially, consciousness is what it “feels like” to exist. If this is the case, then what will be necessary is figuring out which configurations of matter correlate with the subjective experience of pleasure, and then figuring out how to arrange matter to maximize its pleasure per unit mass. Of course, it might be impossible to truly know for certain whether some substance alien to the human mind experiences qualia. In this case, we can assume by analogy and self-knowledge of our own consciousness that human neural tissue possesses the quality of conscious experience. To “play it safe” and ensure that we know for sure that the hedonium we produce is truly conscious, we can construct artificial neural tissue patterned after our own brains, with structural and chemical modifications implemented to ensure that they experience constant pleasure unaffected by a hedonic treadmill. To do so would require research into the human brain and figuring out just what structures and processes produce pleasure, and which ones limit pleasure by causing us to bore of it after repeated exposure. By replicating the former and removing the latter, we can create mental structures that we are able to confidently assert experience pleasure that is as rapturous in every moment as much as the first. It also may be possible that digital minds are found to be capable of experiencing qualia (though figuring this out with certainty would pose a philosophical challenge), in which case the hedonium structures to be built would be digital configurations designed to simulate a maximum number of minds in a state of maximum pleasure. Whether hedonium takes the form of some inherently pleasurable state of matter, neural tissue stimulated into constant pleasure, or digital simulation of enraptured minds, we will have to figure out by a program of intense research and philosophizing just what pleasurable qualia is, and then by an equally ambitious program of engineering seek to bring it about.
Once we know what form hedonium will take, the next apparent question is how we will transform the matter of the universe into it. This will evidently require the invention of some sort of Star Trek-esque “replicator,” which can transform matter from one form to another at a molecular, elemental, and even nuclear level. Considering that the vast majority of the universe’s matter is hydrogen and helium, some sort of fusion device would have to be constructed that could transmute those elements into the heavier ones that would presumably be necessary to constructing hedonium. We also run up against the fact that much of this hydrogen and helium is located inside of stars. We would need to develop “star scoops” that could delve into the hot plasma of stars and extract the elements therein for subsequent fusion. In addition to these hedonium-constructing technologies, we would also likely desire an ability to create them from self-replicating machines, Von Neumann probes that would spread throughout the cosmos to set up a hedonium production system at each celestial body encountered. Considering all of these requirements for the production of hedonium, we can see a rough outline of the engineering program that will be required. We must advance knowledge and development of fusion technology to get to a point where lighter elements can easily be transformed into heavier ones. We must advance knowledge of nano-scale construction to have the resultant elements be pieced together into whatever form the hedonium takes. We must advance material engineering to the point that devices that can withstand the heat of the insides of a star can be constructed. And we must develop the general principles underlying self-replicating machines and the space travel technology to propel them to their eventual goals. All of these are likely far distant developments, but in the present we can start by laying out a roadmap of what our ultimate engineering goals are, and begin the development of the infant technologies that will eventually mature into these hedonium prerequisites.
In addition to figuring out just what hedonium is and how to construct it, we will also have to lay out a regime of where throughout the universe it will spread. While the simplest possibility would be to simply spread out and construct hedonium everywhere, we might find it prudent to consider exceptions that would be spared from hedonium conversion. While we seek to maximize pleasure, we can note that spreading to 99.999…999% of the universe is nearly as good as spreading to 100% of it. So what exceptions would we make to hedonium construction? One likely answer is to spare any planet or solar system that is found to contain life. While I have written before that Darwinian life almost certainly entails a preponderance of suffering over pleasure, we might wish to allow any life encountered to continue to exist as a “hedge,” in case there is some more “existential” meaning to life that is not fulfilled by simple pleasure maximization. Further, no matter how great the suffering a planet of life might entail, it would be more than swamped by the pleasure of the surrounding hedonium. Therefore, we can see that it seems prudent to allow life to continue unmolested. Under such a regime, the inert, dumb matter of the universe would be converted, while systems housing living matter would be allowed to survive, meaning that no life would be harmed or made any worse off by the conversion of the rest of the universe. We might also consider the possible existence of systems with life that is technologically advanced, and that attempting to convert them to hedonium would be a hostile act, which would cause their alien inhabitants to become hostile to the spreading hedonium system and prompt them to fight against and try to destroy it. Showing such lifeforms that they are not threatened by the hedonium system would mean that the whole system would not be put at risk for the relatively minor gain of one or two more star systems being converted. Possibly the worst thing that could happen is other intelligent life being incentivized to destroy the hedonium system, so a risk-averse policy could be followed in which any intelligent life is given a wide berth. All of this brings forth the question of how this would be implemented, which I believe implies that there must be some control system put into place that directs where the Von Neumann probes are sent and provides some form of semi-centralized control for the entire hedonium system. We will have to put either ourselves or some future superintelligence in the driver’s seat to ensure that hedonium is only spread where it is moral and prudent to do so, which is to say the vast majority of the universe that is unpopulated by life.
In conclusion, tiling the universe with hedonium is a task that likely won’t be accomplished until the far future, but even in the present there is still much we can do. We can begin research in neuroscience and philosophy of mind that can elucidate just what matter is capable of consciousness, what it means for that consciousness to be happy, and how to maximize the happiness in whatever we find consciousness capable of dwelling within. We can also start scientific and engineering development on the infancy technologies that will eventually lead to the great and complex machines that will be necessary for the actual conversion of matter into hedonium. And we can begin the process of figuring out just where hedonium should and shouldn’t be spread, and implementing a control system that will allow this distinction to be followed once the neuroscientific and engineering advancements are ready. So what can we do in the moment? We can demand that a long term goal of hedonium construction becomes a guiding light in science and engineering, such that projects leading towards its eventual implementation are pursued. We can spread the word of this as a desirable outcome for human technological progress, such that more thinkers and builders become devoted to this as a project. And on a more personal level, you can subscribe to this publication if you’re interested and want to hear more about a hedonium future.