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The most altruistic and sustainable philosophies fail before the brute brain stem imperative of self-interest.
Self-interest
We all come into the story halfway through, we all catch up as best we can, and we’re all gonna die before it ends.”
Story
“Let me give you the gift of happiness,” she said. “I’m already pretty happy.” “I’ll make you happier. A TAT, on me.” “Tat?” “Transient Attitudinal Tweak. I’ve still got privileges at Sax.” “I’ve been tweaked plenty. Change one more synapse and I might turn into someone else.” “That’s ridiculous and you know it. Or every experience you had would turn you into a different person.” I thought about that. “Maybe it does.”
Gift of happiness
Brains are survival engines, not truth detectors. If self-deception promotes fitness, the brain lies. Stops noticing—irrelevant things. Truth never matters. Only fitness. By now you don’t experience the world as it exists at all. You experience a simulation built from assumptions. Shortcuts. Lies. Whole species is agnosiac by default. Rorschach does nothing to you that you don’t already do to yourselves.”
Brain
Think of all we could accomplish if we didn’t have to lapse into unconsciousness every fifteen hours or so, if our minds could stay awake and alert from the moment of infancy to that final curtain call a hundred and twenty years later. Think of eight billion souls with no off switch and no downtime until the very chassis wore out.
Sleep
“At some point in our evolution, we started to make decisions consciously, and we’re not very good at it.”
Decisions
