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> How is that fundamentally different than what humans do? I mean our brains algorithms are probably much more complex, but the principles should be the same. S

> How is that fundamentally different than what humans do? I mean our brains algorithms are probably much more complex, but the principles should be the same. Shocking a neural net with negative reward, and it will strongly desire to avoid that again. How is that different than pain? Because we feel the pain, why? Does neural net feel anything?

sokoloff 10y ago
Is the fact that we feel pain a bug, a feature, or no different from a neural net that learns to avoid that negative reward via electrical impulses rather than electrochemical impulses as we do?
- RivieraKid 10y ago
  It's not a bug or a feature, the fact we feel or experience anything at all is the most fundamental aspect of our existence. If you think about it, subjective experience is the only thing that exists. All of physics stems from subjective experience. Physics is basically a systematic describtion of the patterns and regularities that we experience and perceive. Example - we see that objects always fall down when dropped - we use gravity to describe this pattern.
  - aninhumer 10y ago
    Certainly experience is the only window we have into existence, and in that sense it is fundamental, but many people believe that matter itself exists regardless of whether we're around to see it.
    - RivieraKid 10y ago
      Depends on what you mean by "matter exists". The way I look at it, only consciousness exists, physical world is just a mental model consistent with what we perceive (see, hear) through consciousness / mind / subjective experience.
      - aninhumer 10y ago
        Well epistemology is hard, which is why I said "believe". However, the evidence for materialism is that many different consciousnesses exist, and seemingly come into being and cease during the temporal process of the physical world. That would seem to suggest that the consciousnesses are functions of the physical world, rather than vice versa. (Unless you're a solipsist?)
        RivieraKid 10y ago
        Perhaps I'm a solipsist, I generally agree with most of what's on the wiki description. I define consciousness as my feelings, perceptions, thoughts. We imagine other people have consciousness because they act like us. We could define consciousness in a non-solipsistic, objective way, but it would be a fundamentally different thing. Maybe one reason why the hard problem of consciousness is hard is because people hate that solipsism is part of the answer. By the way, one important argument I forgot to mention that leads to a possible way to define the "third-party" / objective consciousness (in the last point): - Consciousness is not physical. - Physical brain can obviously affect the state of consciousness. - Can consciousness affect the physical brain though? I believe yes, because otherwise we would not be talking about this, I would not write here about consciousness not being physical. However, I'm less convinced about this than the above. - The consequence is that we should be able to observe something fishy going on in the brain, for example supposedly random quantum processes not being random, which would "break" current physical laws. - Brains with this fishy behavior are conscious. A fun theory - most likely wrong though - is that you can "tune" / connect physical systems to a consciosness by arranging them in specific way or whatever. And during evolution, the brain has learned to do that, because it was evolutionary advantageous.
        aninhumer 10y ago
        More generally, I believe your position is a form of Monism (the universe is made of one thing) called Idealism (that one thing is the mind). Other forms of Monism are Materialism (everything is matter) and Neutral Monism (both mind and matter are made of something else). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monism >We imagine other people have consciousness because they act like us. We could define consciousness in a non-solipsistic, objective way, but it would be a fundamentally different thing. I think most people would say conciousness just refers to the experience of qualia, which doesn't require redefinition to allow other people to have it. >Can consciousness affect the physical brain though? I believe yes, because otherwise we would not be talking about this I don't think it's necessary. We could essentially be p-zombies, but with a mind along for the ride. We experience making decisions but that's just a projection of the physical brain's processes.
rdslw 10y ago
There is nothing magical in 'feel the pain' (also love,hate etc). What about hunger and others? Your body and brain evolved to a current state which releases chemical substances to signal to other parts of body what's going on. Here cut arm is signaling with pain it's hurt and this will/may (after many layers of reduction) hamper your survival chances, thats why you have such signaling in place. In essence, your pain feeling (and others 'high feelings like love/child etc') is no different than automatic closing your eyes because your eyelashes touched something or you moving out of warm environment because it's not comfort anymore to you or you drinking some water because you're thirsty (BTW try to trink about how that 'I'm thirsty' thought just appeared in your brain - who did it? ;) ).
- RivieraKid 10y ago
  > What about hunger and others? The same as pain in principle, it's just a type of feeling. Physics can't not only explain them, it can't even define them, because they're subjective experiences. > Your body and brain evolved to a current state which releases chemical substances to signal to other parts of body what's going on. Here cut arm is signaling with pain it's hurt and this will/may (after many layers of reduction) hamper your survival chances, thats why you have such signaling in place. I'm sorry, but this is completely irrelevant. When I discuss this people always describe what happens in the human body when we feel pain and how it's evolutionary advantageous - I don't get what's the point of that. What's happenning in the body when we feel pain is not the question. The problem is why do we feel pain when those physical processes happen. Or more specifically, why do we feel pain when the physical particles in the brain are in certain configurations.
  - mnkmnk 10y ago
    Isn't feeling pain the equivalent of negative reward? Negative reward must be avoided, similarly, pain must be avoided. Isn't this a good enough reason to feel pain?
    - RivieraKid 10y ago
      Feeling of pain is a type of feeling, a state of mind. Negative reward (that's an oxymoron lol, let's call it punishment) is an action that leads to an unpleasant feeling such as pain, fear, hunger, etc.
chillacy 10y ago
Do dogs experience pain? Probably most would say yes, since dogs have been bred to convey their emotions better to humans (though you still have to look at their tail as much as their face). How about pigs? Pigs are smarter than dogs on many levels, but we're largely okay with slaughtering them for food and not dogs. They haven't been bred to look cute. Do bugs? Bugs are much simpler than mammals, but they also exhibit aversion to pain. Have you squashed a bug before? What I'm getting at is this: we have more empathy for those who look like us. This applies even among humans if you look at results from IATs.
Houshalter 10y ago
Yes I think a artificial neural net feels pain, perhaps even the same way we do (if it has the right algorithm, any way.) If you shock it, it will experience a strong desire to avoid being shocked again. If you give it other instincts like "cry when experiencing a negative reward" and "focus all your attention on the source of pain to avoid distraction", etc, it starts to look much more human like too.
- RivieraKid 10y ago
  > Yes I think a artificial neural net feels pain, perhaps even the same way we do (if it has the right algorithm, any way.) We can't even define the feeling of pain, let alone decide whether a neural net feels it. > If you shock it, it will experience a strong desire to avoid being shocked again. If you give it other instincts like "cry when experiencing a negative reward" and "focus all your attention on the source of pain to avoid distraction", etc, it starts to look much more human like too. Why would it experience anything? Why would a computer with specific values in its registers feel pain? Would I cause real pain by setting the CPU registers and memory into a specific state?
  - Houshalter 10y ago
    >We can't even define the feeling of pain, let alone decide whether a neural net feels it. I never claimed there was an agreed on definition. But I think this is closer to one. >Why would a computer with specific values in its registers feel pain? Would I cause real pain by setting the CPU registers and memory into a specific state? Yes, obviously. The neural net would register your actions as an extremely negative experience, and do everything in it's power to get you to stop. How is that different than torturing a person?
    - aninhumer 10y ago
      The experience of pain is not the same thing as reaction to pain. Humans and neural nets both display the latter, but the only instance of the former we can observe is in oneself. It's possible neural nets do experience pain, but we have no way of knowing that (any more than we do of knowing that other humans do).

sokoloff 10y ago

Is the fact that we feel pain a bug, a feature, or no different from a neural net that learns to avoid that negative reward via electrical impulses rather than electrochemical impulses as we do?

RivieraKid 10y ago
It's not a bug or a feature, the fact we feel or experience anything at all is the most fundamental aspect of our existence. If you think about it, subjective experience is the only thing that exists. All of physics stems from subjective experience. Physics is basically a systematic describtion of the patterns and regularities that we experience and perceive. Example - we see that objects always fall down when dropped - we use gravity to describe this pattern.
- aninhumer 10y ago
  Certainly experience is the only window we have into existence, and in that sense it is fundamental, but many people believe that matter itself exists regardless of whether we're around to see it.
  - RivieraKid 10y ago
    Depends on what you mean by "matter exists". The way I look at it, only consciousness exists, physical world is just a mental model consistent with what we perceive (see, hear) through consciousness / mind / subjective experience.
    - aninhumer 10y ago
      Well epistemology is hard, which is why I said "believe". However, the evidence for materialism is that many different consciousnesses exist, and seemingly come into being and cease during the temporal process of the physical world. That would seem to suggest that the consciousnesses are functions of the physical world, rather than vice versa. (Unless you're a solipsist?)
      - RivieraKid 10y ago
        Perhaps I'm a solipsist, I generally agree with most of what's on the wiki description. I define consciousness as my feelings, perceptions, thoughts. We imagine other people have consciousness because they act like us. We could define consciousness in a non-solipsistic, objective way, but it would be a fundamentally different thing. Maybe one reason why the hard problem of consciousness is hard is because people hate that solipsism is part of the answer. By the way, one important argument I forgot to mention that leads to a possible way to define the "third-party" / objective consciousness (in the last point): - Consciousness is not physical. - Physical brain can obviously affect the state of consciousness. - Can consciousness affect the physical brain though? I believe yes, because otherwise we would not be talking about this, I would not write here about consciousness not being physical. However, I'm less convinced about this than the above. - The consequence is that we should be able to observe something fishy going on in the brain, for example supposedly random quantum processes not being random, which would "break" current physical laws. - Brains with this fishy behavior are conscious. A fun theory - most likely wrong though - is that you can "tune" / connect physical systems to a consciosness by arranging them in specific way or whatever. And during evolution, the brain has learned to do that, because it was evolutionary advantageous.
        aninhumer 10y ago
        More generally, I believe your position is a form of Monism (the universe is made of one thing) called Idealism (that one thing is the mind). Other forms of Monism are Materialism (everything is matter) and Neutral Monism (both mind and matter are made of something else). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monism >We imagine other people have consciousness because they act like us. We could define consciousness in a non-solipsistic, objective way, but it would be a fundamentally different thing. I think most people would say conciousness just refers to the experience of qualia, which doesn't require redefinition to allow other people to have it. >Can consciousness affect the physical brain though? I believe yes, because otherwise we would not be talking about this I don't think it's necessary. We could essentially be p-zombies, but with a mind along for the ride. We experience making decisions but that's just a projection of the physical brain's processes.

rdslw 10y ago

There is nothing magical in 'feel the pain' (also love,hate etc). What about hunger and others? Your body and brain evolved to a current state which releases chemical substances to signal to other parts of body what's going on. Here cut arm is signaling with pain it's hurt and this will/may (after many layers of reduction) hamper your survival chances, thats why you have such signaling in place. In essence, your pain feeling (and others 'high feelings like love/child etc') is no different than automatic closing your eyes because your eyelashes touched something or you moving out of warm environment because it's not comfort anymore to you or you drinking some water because you're thirsty (BTW try to trink about how that 'I'm thirsty' thought just appeared in your brain - who did it? ;) ).

RivieraKid 10y ago
> What about hunger and others? The same as pain in principle, it's just a type of feeling. Physics can't not only explain them, it can't even define them, because they're subjective experiences. > Your body and brain evolved to a current state which releases chemical substances to signal to other parts of body what's going on. Here cut arm is signaling with pain it's hurt and this will/may (after many layers of reduction) hamper your survival chances, thats why you have such signaling in place. I'm sorry, but this is completely irrelevant. When I discuss this people always describe what happens in the human body when we feel pain and how it's evolutionary advantageous - I don't get what's the point of that. What's happenning in the body when we feel pain is not the question. The problem is why do we feel pain when those physical processes happen. Or more specifically, why do we feel pain when the physical particles in the brain are in certain configurations.
- mnkmnk 10y ago
  Isn't feeling pain the equivalent of negative reward? Negative reward must be avoided, similarly, pain must be avoided. Isn't this a good enough reason to feel pain?
  - RivieraKid 10y ago
    Feeling of pain is a type of feeling, a state of mind. Negative reward (that's an oxymoron lol, let's call it punishment) is an action that leads to an unpleasant feeling such as pain, fear, hunger, etc.

chillacy 10y ago

Do dogs experience pain? Probably most would say yes, since dogs have been bred to convey their emotions better to humans (though you still have to look at their tail as much as their face). How about pigs? Pigs are smarter than dogs on many levels, but we're largely okay with slaughtering them for food and not dogs. They haven't been bred to look cute. Do bugs? Bugs are much simpler than mammals, but they also exhibit aversion to pain. Have you squashed a bug before? What I'm getting at is this: we have more empathy for those who look like us. This applies even among humans if you look at results from IATs.

Houshalter 10y ago

Yes I think a artificial neural net feels pain, perhaps even the same way we do (if it has the right algorithm, any way.) If you shock it, it will experience a strong desire to avoid being shocked again. If you give it other instincts like "cry when experiencing a negative reward" and "focus all your attention on the source of pain to avoid distraction", etc, it starts to look much more human like too.

RivieraKid 10y ago
> Yes I think a artificial neural net feels pain, perhaps even the same way we do (if it has the right algorithm, any way.) We can't even define the feeling of pain, let alone decide whether a neural net feels it. > If you shock it, it will experience a strong desire to avoid being shocked again. If you give it other instincts like "cry when experiencing a negative reward" and "focus all your attention on the source of pain to avoid distraction", etc, it starts to look much more human like too. Why would it experience anything? Why would a computer with specific values in its registers feel pain? Would I cause real pain by setting the CPU registers and memory into a specific state?
- Houshalter 10y ago
  >We can't even define the feeling of pain, let alone decide whether a neural net feels it. I never claimed there was an agreed on definition. But I think this is closer to one. >Why would a computer with specific values in its registers feel pain? Would I cause real pain by setting the CPU registers and memory into a specific state? Yes, obviously. The neural net would register your actions as an extremely negative experience, and do everything in it's power to get you to stop. How is that different than torturing a person?
  - aninhumer 10y ago
    The experience of pain is not the same thing as reaction to pain. Humans and neural nets both display the latter, but the only instance of the former we can observe is in oneself. It's possible neural nets do experience pain, but we have no way of knowing that (any more than we do of knowing that other humans do).