<p>I'm sitting a few yards away from my bed, where the ACT Red Book is prominently perched.</p>
<p>It got me thinking, I know I need to study for the ACT, but there's so many other things I <em>feel</em> like doing. There are times I wish I could stop "feeling" and just get things done. Sometimes, I wish I could be more robotic. </p>
<p>But what I'm wondering is, would it be worth giving up a part of your personality to reach that level of productivity?</p>
<p>I mean, if I worked non-stop, I could accomplish a lot of things. But would the time spent directing my focus towards work be worth sacrificing the time I would've spent pondering and formulating new ideas?</p>
<p>I’m not under the impression that we’ve engineered any robots that one could “be” in even a hypothetical sense inasmuch as they lack consciousness.</p>
<p>But since that increased robotic productivity would never be self-cognized, you’re essentially asking whether one would sacrifice mental existence in favor of accomplishment, which – if we reasonably assume the worth of any accomplishment to be significant only insofar as it’s perceived – would be necessarily selfless unless mental existence is undesirable. To answer that I would have to know the specifics of the proposed robotic capacity to help others.</p>
<p>I don’t know, man. I didn’t do it! Wait…what?</p>
<p>Seriously, don’t bring too much cockamamie philosophy in here or my thread will lose its initial allure. :'(</p>
<p>This is purely about finding the balance between work and play. CCers love to play, but they know they <em>have</em> to work. Well, would they sacrifice their ability to play for the ability to do more work. Simple?</p>
But what is the point of work, without mental fulfillment? Unless the work is ending poverty, and I couldn’t do it unless I was Skynet, then I’ll go with mental fulfillment and consciousness.</p>
<p>Ok, um…I think I understand what you’re saying, BUT I’m concerned with how many people on this site would choose “freedom” or “free-will” over work-related (or monetary, however you like it) success. </p>
<p>I mean, I could study all day, play the “game” and hope it gets me there, or I can try to achieve self-actuation through self-enlightenment, pondering, playing etc. </p>
<p>Maybe, I could do both. But would I sacrifice time spent on the latter for more time to muck through the former?</p>
<p>Occasionally I go, “WAH THESE EMOTIONS ARE SO TROUBLESOME” and wish to be an emotionless robot. Other times I also go “WAH I CAN’T TEACH MYSELF CALCULUS” and wish to have a computer-like brain. For the most part, though, I remind myself that thinking that way is being unfair and ignoring the other great things in life. Hard work is good, but (IMO) it’s not healthy when you’re compromising the other parts of your life.</p>
<p>Ok, so that’s the sort of response I’m looking for.</p>
<p>I mean, I may or may not have greater intellectual capacity than Brad Pitt. But, say, I want what he has. Would I be willing trade intelligence and free thought for the promise of reward in the form of worldly pleasures?</p>
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<p>Oh, John F. Kennedy, who could possibly be cooler than you, you raging Lothario?</p>
<p>Right, I think that you were using the robotic concept metaphorically, which explains our disconnect. Striking a pleasing equilibrium between ostensibly hedonistic pursuits and more traditionally respectable effort and output is too qualitatively murky for me to describe what I conceive as the ideal in any meaningful way, but I do think that one needs to be frequently conscious of tweaking that balancing act in response to mood and productivity feedback metrics and also to be aware of the great malleability of the human mind to, for example, derive satisfaction from activities of high corporeal utility – volitional rendering towards the “two birds with one stone” concept, I would call it.</p>
Except Brad Pitt is still a conscious human being, and actually rather smart and dedicated to helping the poor. So maybe you should have used a different example.</p>
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I take it you clicked the second “JFK”?</p>
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I have only ever seen a grammatically correct sentence longer than this from Caesar or Cicero.</p>
<p>Interesting. If I’m understanding this correctly, you mean to say if living the hedonistic life is the ideal, then working, in the “robotic” sense, is only worth doing up until you reach and maintain that ideal? Or did I misread that entirely…</p>
<p>You kinda lost me here though:</p>
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<p>Is “corporeal” the equivalent to “biological” in this case? If yes, you’re talking about sex… or eating…? No entiendo. </p>
<p>I mean, I can understand it from the sex perspective, because humans <em>are</em> fleshy robots, programmed to reproduce. But, I’m not saying we become so robotic so as to stop eating or whatever. I mean, even robots need fuel. :/</p>
<p>I’m not gonna lie… I have always wanted to be Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator…but him in T2: Judgement Day. He was a BAMF in that movie taking down the T-1000 in the refinery.</p>
<p>I know most of the people here were probably going the more philosophical root for this, but honestly just go watch that movie and tell me you don’t agree</p>
<p>It is actually surprisingly difficult to teach a computer calculus, probably more so than a human (obviously depending on the individual ). Of course after you’ve done it once replicating it is much easier. But I get the feeling that the OP wasn’t thinking this literally, and if that’s the case I get where (s)he is coming from.</p>
). Of course after you’ve done it once replicating it is much easier. But I get the feeling that the OP wasn’t thinking this literally, and if that’s the case I get where (s)he is coming from.</p>