3 ms·

I'm not convinced we understand qualia/feelings well enough to definitively say. The presence of eg phantom limb pain suggests pain can arise in the mind, inde

I'm not convinced we understand qualia/feelings well enough to definitively say. The presence of eg phantom limb pain suggests pain can arise in the mind, independent of physical nerve signals. It would be a remarkable convergence if AGI's developed the same sensations as humans, but we can't rule it out until we fully understand both how the human mind and the AGI systems actually work.

burnished 4y ago
Phantom limb pain is still part of a physical system and does not 'arise from the mind' in some abstract sense. The absence of a signal is in a sense a signal.
- nanny 4y ago
  >Phantom limb pain is still part of a physical system and does not 'arise from the mind' Careful, because you seem to have implied that the mind is not a physical system (i.e. you've assumed that dualism or idealism is true and that physicalism is wrong).
  - burnished 4y ago
    Oh thats funny, I'm having a hard time reading that interpretation, my point more specifically is that it is all a purely physical system - I put scare quotes around that phrase because I believed it implied some metaphysical mind.
    - nanny 4y ago
      Ahh I see what you mean now, sorry. I mistakenly inferred something that wasn't there. I agree that it's all part of a physical system and that the absence of the signal is still meaningful. Getting back to the topic: While phantom pain may be more interesting, maybe a better example that the parent comment could've brought up is psychogenic pain. In this case there is no apparent physical (bodily) damage, no apparent signal, nor an absence of a signal. Searching for a cause of this type of pain in the brain (presumably some "wires" are getting "crossed") seems like it might help us develop a explanation of pain qualia...in humans/animals. But I feel like this type of thinking and research could only apply to AGI if subjective experience turns out to be functionalist in nature, and arguments in favor of a functionalist interpretation of experience have so far been fairly unconvincing.
  - hoseja 4y ago
    Or he made a distinction between the simple, signalling peripheral nervous system and the highly integrated, full of emergent properties, seemingly more than the sum of its parts, central nervous system.

burnished 4y ago

Phantom limb pain is still part of a physical system and does not 'arise from the mind' in some abstract sense. The absence of a signal is in a sense a signal.

nanny 4y ago
>Phantom limb pain is still part of a physical system and does not 'arise from the mind' Careful, because you seem to have implied that the mind is not a physical system (i.e. you've assumed that dualism or idealism is true and that physicalism is wrong).
- burnished 4y ago
  Oh thats funny, I'm having a hard time reading that interpretation, my point more specifically is that it is all a purely physical system - I put scare quotes around that phrase because I believed it implied some metaphysical mind.
  - nanny 4y ago
    Ahh I see what you mean now, sorry. I mistakenly inferred something that wasn't there. I agree that it's all part of a physical system and that the absence of the signal is still meaningful. Getting back to the topic: While phantom pain may be more interesting, maybe a better example that the parent comment could've brought up is psychogenic pain. In this case there is no apparent physical (bodily) damage, no apparent signal, nor an absence of a signal. Searching for a cause of this type of pain in the brain (presumably some "wires" are getting "crossed") seems like it might help us develop a explanation of pain qualia...in humans/animals. But I feel like this type of thinking and research could only apply to AGI if subjective experience turns out to be functionalist in nature, and arguments in favor of a functionalist interpretation of experience have so far been fairly unconvincing.
- hoseja 4y ago
  Or he made a distinction between the simple, signalling peripheral nervous system and the highly integrated, full of emergent properties, seemingly more than the sum of its parts, central nervous system.