David Deutsch: evaluation

Transcript context

…Is this placing a limitation on universal explainers? If they can create some theory about why a thing could or should be fun? Why could anything be fun? It seems to be that sometimes we actually can make things fun that aren't like, for example, take exercise, no pain, no gain is like when you first go, it's not fun. But, once you start going, you understand the mechanics, you develop a theory for why CAD should be fun? Yes, that's quite a good example. Because there you see that fun cannot be defined as the absence of pain. You can have fun while experiencing physical pain. And that physical pain is not sparking suffering, but joy. However, there is such a thing as physical pain not sparking joy, as Marie Kondo would say. And that's important, because if you are dogmatically or uncritically implementing in your life, a theory of the good, that involves pain, and which excludes the criticism that maybe this can't be fun. Or maybe this isn't yet fun. Or maybe I should make it fun. And if I can't, that's a reason to stop all those things, if all those things are excluded, because by definition, the thing is good, and your pain, your suffering doesn't matter, then that opens the door to not only suffering, but to stasis. You won't be able to get to a better theory. And then why is fun central to this instead of another emotion? So, like, for example, Aristotle thought that a widely defined sense of happiness is “what should be the goal of our endeavors?” Why fun instead of something like that?…

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