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What makes you think we are anything more than the output of a reward function? Dopamine and other hormones function as our reward system and are so fundamental

What makes you think we are anything more than the output of a reward function? Dopamine and other hormones function as our reward system and are so fundamental and drive effectively all of our behaviours and our learning from the moment we were born. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reward_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reward_system https://academic.oup.com/endo/article/151/5/1978/2456493 https://academic.oup.com/endo/article/151/5/1978/2456493

lr4444lr 7y ago
The fact that it disgusts him, and that you in turn might appreciate the irony of the reward system actually hating itself is pretty strong evidence that there's more to the human experience than biologically reinforced operant conditioning.
- Brave-Steak 7y ago
  > is pretty strong evidence that there's more to the human experience than biologically reinforced operant conditioning. I'm not sure that follows. The reward system can't produce output by itself. It requires an input. Any input. It requires an environment, a context. And one of the possible outputs is, well, his point of view. But that doesn't invalidate the reward system. It just shows how unpredictable it is.
  - mewpmewp2 7y ago
    There are layers upon layers in that reward system, although everything should be explainable. So how did the reward system come to a point that it does not want to believe it will die at some point and for that reason it had to create several imaginary stories such as religion etc? I wonder if it maybe has to do with group dynamics? In order for some conscious systems to be controlled by more powerful entities they would have had to been fed delusions in order for their reward systems to be happy and not feel cheated upon. Eg reward system wants to maximize survivability and when it is controlled by other systems in power it has to be led lies that after death it will be better so all in all the reward system gets so skewed that eventually it is likely to believe any other type of delusions as well. Such as for example that itself is not a reward system and if it was it would hate itself. So in the end are all delusions defense mechanisms for that reward system to accept that things are unfair, this reward system might not be able to achieve the desired goals so it has to adapt itself? But why can't this reward system just hibernate without delusions? Edit: actually I think coming to hate itself as a reward system is part of societal pressures. Society pressures each reward system to do common good for that society and creates morals. These morals have been created in a manner that one has to be something more than a selfish creature or otherwise gets shunned so reward system will create all those thoughts in order to avoid having to face selfish desires vs societal pressures head on?
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Why? That only suggests that the reward system can hate itself. It's not out of scope, much like a computer being able to self-diagnose some of its workings isn't a weird thing.

lr4444lr 7y ago

The fact that it disgusts him, and that you in turn might appreciate the irony of the reward system actually hating itself is pretty strong evidence that there's more to the human experience than biologically reinforced operant conditioning.

Brave-Steak 7y ago
> is pretty strong evidence that there's more to the human experience than biologically reinforced operant conditioning. I'm not sure that follows. The reward system can't produce output by itself. It requires an input. Any input. It requires an environment, a context. And one of the possible outputs is, well, his point of view. But that doesn't invalidate the reward system. It just shows how unpredictable it is.
- mewpmewp2 7y ago
  There are layers upon layers in that reward system, although everything should be explainable. So how did the reward system come to a point that it does not want to believe it will die at some point and for that reason it had to create several imaginary stories such as religion etc? I wonder if it maybe has to do with group dynamics? In order for some conscious systems to be controlled by more powerful entities they would have had to been fed delusions in order for their reward systems to be happy and not feel cheated upon. Eg reward system wants to maximize survivability and when it is controlled by other systems in power it has to be led lies that after death it will be better so all in all the reward system gets so skewed that eventually it is likely to believe any other type of delusions as well. Such as for example that itself is not a reward system and if it was it would hate itself. So in the end are all delusions defense mechanisms for that reward system to accept that things are unfair, this reward system might not be able to achieve the desired goals so it has to adapt itself? But why can't this reward system just hibernate without delusions? Edit: actually I think coming to hate itself as a reward system is part of societal pressures. Society pressures each reward system to do common good for that society and creates morals. These morals have been created in a manner that one has to be something more than a selfish creature or otherwise gets shunned so reward system will create all those thoughts in order to avoid having to face selfish desires vs societal pressures head on?
TeMPOraL 7y ago
Why? That only suggests that the reward system can hate itself. It's not out of scope, much like a computer being able to self-diagnose some of its workings isn't a weird thing.