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A couple of thoughts: I ran an email list at one point where we posted articles about research into brain wiring and discussed it and this doesn't jibe with my

A couple of thoughts: I ran an email list at one point where we posted articles about research into brain wiring and discussed it and this doesn't jibe with my understanding. My understanding is that emotion is another means to relate to certain kinds of information. It's like a TLDR, a file summing up all of your experiences with X and informing you how to relate to X. So if your brain tells you "I'm in love!" that's shorthand for something like "This person meets some bar compared to other people." It's a summary of your life experience with all people, all romantic situations and all of your interactions with this one individual. People with high affect can make snap judgements because they have a strong signal, a loud TLDR file telling them "I love this!" or "I hate this!" People with low affect can't make snap decisions. They have to take their time to think things through and make conscious, intentional choices. They can't go with their gut. So I don't think of love as bribery. Love is a density of information telling you don't sweat the small stuff. You think this is someone to bet your future on when it's not possible to ever know for sure how that will go. The second thought is that her idea of choosing your friends doesn't resonate with me. Just like with romantic partners, my friends are people I just hit it off with. That mutual spark is there or it's not. I work at friendship. Friends are important to me. But if I could just decide somewhat unilaterally that "I want to be friends with x person" and make that happen, I wouldn't have been so socially isolated in recent years.

visarga 5y ago
Looks like the value function in reinforcement learning. You assign a high value to being close to your loved one. The value function is like you say a synthesis of your past experiences, learning what leads to positive or negative rewards. The rewards themselves are biologically coded in our brains by evolutionary pressures, but the value function is like integrating rewards over chains of situations and actions.

visarga 5y ago

Looks like the value function in reinforcement learning. You assign a high value to being close to your loved one. The value function is like you say a synthesis of your past experiences, learning what leads to positive or negative rewards. The rewards themselves are biologically coded in our brains by evolutionary pressures, but the value function is like integrating rewards over chains of situations and actions.