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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 th

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

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.