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I think what you've just described is Larry Niven's "wirehead." In Larry Niven's Known Space stories, a wirehead is someone who has been fitted with an electro
by msluyter 13y ago
I think what you've just described is Larry Niven's "wirehead."
In Larry Niven's Known Space stories, a wirehead is someone who has been fitted with an electronic brain implant (called a "droud" in the stories) to stimulate the pleasure centres of their brain. In the Known Space universe, wireheading is the most addictive habit known (Louis Wu is the only given example of a recovered addict), and wireheads usually die from neglecting themselves in favour of the ceaseless pleasure. Wireheading is so powerful and easy that it becomes an evolutionary pressure, selecting against that portion of Known Space humanity without self-control. Wireheading need not use an actual brain implant; the pleasure centre can be remotely activated by a small device called a "tasp" (important in the Ringworld novels).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehead_(science_fiction) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehead_(science_fiction)
- gwern 13y agoWe already have wireheading, but the surgery is too invasive for it to be anything but an obscure curiosity.
- nazgulnarsil 13y agoThere is a lot of ambiguity about whether we are able to activate pleasure or merely activate wanting.
- jlgreco 13y agoSeems pretty easy to test, though hard to test ethically perhaps. Wire someone up, flip the switch, tell them that they can turn it off if they don't like it. If they like it, then is it not by definition pleasure? Perhaps they find "wanting" to be pleasurable, but I know that I for one do not.
- nazgulnarsil 13y agoit has been tried on humans only twice AFAIK
- bumbledraven 13y agoDetails/cite?
- s_baby 13y agohttp://www.wireheading.com/delgado/index.html http://www.wireheading.com/delgado/index.html
- nazgulnarsil 13y agohadn't seen this. Thank you!
- s_baby 13y agoThere was a particular case study I can't find that documented intense euphoria. To the point the subjects were borderline dysfunctional, like the rats with the cocaine dispensing lever experiment.
- nazgulnarsil 13y agobrb heading to Hong Kong for illicit surgery.
- gwern 13y agoI'm not sure there's any real practical difference as far as utility or the negative effects go.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- RobotCaleb 13y agoFor a slightly different take on it, see the Red Dwarf Novel "Better than Life" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Than_Life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Than_Life
- jholman 13y agoAlso explored at length in God Is An Iron, a short story by Spider Robinson, extended into the novel Mindkiller. Unlike in Ringworld, where wireheading/tasps are a MacGuffin, they're the central plot point in GIAI/Mindkiller.
- pstuart 13y agoA great story (and awesome title).
- ryanmcbride 13y agoThis is what I thought of immediately too.