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I agree, but that doesn't answer my question. It's like if I asked why a car goes forwards when you push the gas pedal, and you responded: "The car goes forwar

I agree, but that doesn't answer my question. It's like if I asked why a car goes forwards when you push the gas pedal, and you responded: "The car goes forwards because the driver wants it to move forwards." What I really want is enough understanding of the internals of the car to grasp the chain of cause and effect that causes it to move forwards when you push the gas pedal. How can it be that some chemistry in my brain's pleasure centers leads to a sensation of pleasure?

Nevermark 3y ago
Most sensory signals just provide raw information, but our pain and pleasure nerves trigger special classes of signal, prediction and reinforcement, and therefore motivation. And because of transitivity, our experiences can acquire abstract indirect dimensions layered on the direct physical signals. (This is an analysis, not experimental truth.) Pain nerves do at least three things: 1. Generate a normal sensory signal. "Your hand is hot." 2. Trigger a common pain sensory signal. "Your hand is too hot." 3. Trigger the adaptation of a pain prediction model, with a pain prediction signal. The prediction signal is a reinforcement signal that physically ensures: "You do not like your hand to be too hot." That reinforcement happens in two ways: 4. Trigger negative reinforcement for any action predictive of pain (initiating or maintaining). "You are very motivated not to touch or hold that hot plate!" 5. And positive reinforcement for any action that is predictive of escaping pain (avoiding or reducing). "You are very motivated to wear kitchen mitts before picking up that plate! Or pull you hand away if you accidentally do!" Which results in motivation: 6. We automatically choose actions that avoid pain. We automatically choose actions that extinguish pain. It would take counter-motivation action NOT do these things. Pain prediction, and therefore reinforcement, are transitive: 7. Any state that predicts a state that predicts pain, becomes recursively predictive of pain. "You don't like your hand to be too hot -> holding things that are too hot -> holding hot plates." 8. Any action that is predictive of a state change that is predictive of a pain change, gets recursively reinforced (positively or negatively). "You are motivated to avoid touching hot things -> from touching hot plates -> to wear kitchen mitts." And the dual of all those effects for pleasure. The transitive/recursive learning helps us to avoid pain, and seek pleasure, at a very high indirect level. For instance, the pleasure of drinking wine or eating sushi, isn't just the physical pleasure of drinking and eating when we are thirsty or hungry, but our bodies prediction that those things will make us feel good over the next hour or so after consuming them. Now add self-awareness. When you consider things predictive of pleasure, you feel the the prediction signal, reinforcement, and motivated for that thing. This is "wanting" and "liking". When you are in a state producing the pleasure signal, you feel that signal, continued reinforcement and motivation to stay in that state. This is increased if the state is also associated with future predicted pleasure (i.e. sex feels good physically, but is also predictive of relationship stability, validation, etc.) That makes the experience of "pleasure" far more complicated and meaningful than plain sensory signals. When our body or mind turns off the pleasure, especially in a way we predicted it would, our motivation stops and we feel ready to move on. That is "satisfaction". I think "happiness" could largely be a state where we have high confidence of predictive high level pleasures going forward, or at least in the moment. I.e. peace, success, positive social situation, lack of worries, interesting challenges, etc.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
  This all seems plausible to me, but I have the same objection as I did in my grandparent comment. I agree that it's useful to feel pain and pleasure because this adjusts our future actions. But how could sensation actually be implemented? How could I look at equations for one or more chemical reactions and determine whether they happen to generate pain or pleasure? I don't think the usefulness explains the implementation, because we still feel pain and pleasure in situations where it's useless or harmful to feel them. E.g. it's harmful to feel pleasure from addictive drugs, but people do so anyways.
  - Nevermark 3y ago
    I don't think the experience of pain or pleasure will correlate with any substrate (chemistry, circuitry, etc.) The experience would correlate to whether a self-aware system had a subsystem similar to our pain and pleasure subsystem. So you would look at an entity's information/learning system design. -- As for the experience of pleasure or any other feeling, we respond to our accessible signals without any awareness of HOW we are aware of them or how to describe them - except for associations with other stimuli. Our signals run on "hardware" (neural or electronic) below our ability to monitor. CPUs have access to registers and RAM, but not their circuits. We have access to neural signals, but not the neurons, transmitters, or hormones activating them. Our "feelings" are complex mixes of associations, which we recognize, but can't separate into constituent signals and associations. We don't have hardware for that. That inability to identify our feelings components, gives them their mystery. -- Here is an interesting experiment: find some nondestructive way to cause yourself some pain, like pinching. Pinch yourself hard somewhere, but override any avoidance response by focusing on the stimulus instead. Purposely "listen" to it, mindfully learn from it. Frame it as just another sensory signal your are curious about. You can largely inhibit pain avoidance and reinforcement. It's a good trick for to reduce chronic pain, or exercise through pain. Every time you start feeling pain avoidance, refocus on it again to tame it.

Nevermark 3y ago

Most sensory signals just provide raw information, but our pain and pleasure nerves trigger special classes of signal, prediction and reinforcement, and therefore motivation. And because of transitivity, our experiences can acquire abstract indirect dimensions layered on the direct physical signals. (This is an analysis, not experimental truth.) Pain nerves do at least three things: 1. Generate a normal sensory signal. "Your hand is hot." 2. Trigger a common pain sensory signal. "Your hand is too hot." 3. Trigger the adaptation of a pain prediction model, with a pain prediction signal. The prediction signal is a reinforcement signal that physically ensures: "You do not like your hand to be too hot." That reinforcement happens in two ways: 4. Trigger negative reinforcement for any action predictive of pain (initiating or maintaining). "You are very motivated not to touch or hold that hot plate!" 5. And positive reinforcement for any action that is predictive of escaping pain (avoiding or reducing). "You are very motivated to wear kitchen mitts before picking up that plate! Or pull you hand away if you accidentally do!" Which results in motivation: 6. We automatically choose actions that avoid pain. We automatically choose actions that extinguish pain. It would take counter-motivation action NOT do these things. Pain prediction, and therefore reinforcement, are transitive: 7. Any state that predicts a state that predicts pain, becomes recursively predictive of pain. "You don't like your hand to be too hot -> holding things that are too hot -> holding hot plates." 8. Any action that is predictive of a state change that is predictive of a pain change, gets recursively reinforced (positively or negatively). "You are motivated to avoid touching hot things -> from touching hot plates -> to wear kitchen mitts." And the dual of all those effects for pleasure. The transitive/recursive learning helps us to avoid pain, and seek pleasure, at a very high indirect level. For instance, the pleasure of drinking wine or eating sushi, isn't just the physical pleasure of drinking and eating when we are thirsty or hungry, but our bodies prediction that those things will make us feel good over the next hour or so after consuming them. Now add self-awareness. When you consider things predictive of pleasure, you feel the the prediction signal, reinforcement, and motivated for that thing. This is "wanting" and "liking". When you are in a state producing the pleasure signal, you feel that signal, continued reinforcement and motivation to stay in that state. This is increased if the state is also associated with future predicted pleasure (i.e. sex feels good physically, but is also predictive of relationship stability, validation, etc.) That makes the experience of "pleasure" far more complicated and meaningful than plain sensory signals. When our body or mind turns off the pleasure, especially in a way we predicted it would, our motivation stops and we feel ready to move on. That is "satisfaction". I think "happiness" could largely be a state where we have high confidence of predictive high level pleasures going forward, or at least in the moment. I.e. peace, success, positive social situation, lack of worries, interesting challenges, etc.

0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
This all seems plausible to me, but I have the same objection as I did in my grandparent comment. I agree that it's useful to feel pain and pleasure because this adjusts our future actions. But how could sensation actually be implemented? How could I look at equations for one or more chemical reactions and determine whether they happen to generate pain or pleasure? I don't think the usefulness explains the implementation, because we still feel pain and pleasure in situations where it's useless or harmful to feel them. E.g. it's harmful to feel pleasure from addictive drugs, but people do so anyways.
- Nevermark 3y ago
  I don't think the experience of pain or pleasure will correlate with any substrate (chemistry, circuitry, etc.) The experience would correlate to whether a self-aware system had a subsystem similar to our pain and pleasure subsystem. So you would look at an entity's information/learning system design. -- As for the experience of pleasure or any other feeling, we respond to our accessible signals without any awareness of HOW we are aware of them or how to describe them - except for associations with other stimuli. Our signals run on "hardware" (neural or electronic) below our ability to monitor. CPUs have access to registers and RAM, but not their circuits. We have access to neural signals, but not the neurons, transmitters, or hormones activating them. Our "feelings" are complex mixes of associations, which we recognize, but can't separate into constituent signals and associations. We don't have hardware for that. That inability to identify our feelings components, gives them their mystery. -- Here is an interesting experiment: find some nondestructive way to cause yourself some pain, like pinching. Pinch yourself hard somewhere, but override any avoidance response by focusing on the stimulus instead. Purposely "listen" to it, mindfully learn from it. Frame it as just another sensory signal your are curious about. You can largely inhibit pain avoidance and reinforcement. It's a good trick for to reduce chronic pain, or exercise through pain. Every time you start feeling pain avoidance, refocus on it again to tame it.