Stimulating question, Jamie.

A football player can can leap at full speed and dive into the ground, not
noticing until later that their leg is scraped bruised.  They were focused
and goal driven, consumed by a flow state.  The same player can be alarmed
by the sting of an fire ant at picnic and be ridiculed for the resultant
panic.

There was an entomologist who was famous briefly on YouTube.  He would
encourage scary looking insects to sting him and people liked to watch him
get stung.

People like pain they agree to.  They may even demand it.

-Chance

On Mon, May 11, 2020 at 1:37 PM Brent Allsop <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi Jamie,
>
>
>
> Valence has a phenomenal component to it, like colors do.  For example,
> redness is an intrinsic phenomenal quality of knowledge we can be directly
> aware of, in our brain.  Abstract words which computers use to represent
> information with, like the word ‘red’ can be interpreted and quantified as
> if they were red (and thereby behave identically, if you have the
> dictionary), but words like 'red' aren’t intrinsically like anything.  Like
> preschool teachers, someone needs to point to an intrinsic quality, like a
> red crayon (resulting in our knowledge of such that has a redness quality),
> and say: “THAT is red.”
>
>
>
> While computers need dictionaries to know how to behave for different
> words, we do not.  this is because we represent valence information
> directly on physical qualities in our brain.  The intrinsic redness quality
> of our knowledge of red things is the definition of red.  With computer
> ‘valence’, it’s just all interpretations of interpretations.  Computers are
> qualia blind, since nothing is ever intrinsically defined, and none of it
> is like anything.
>
>
>
> So, a computer can representing pain with words like: “level 5 sharp pain”
> so it can be thought of as having a quantitatively equal amount of
> ‘valence’, and it can be programmed with a dictionary to behave the same.
> But such is qualitatively very different than intrinsic physical pain
> valence.
>
>
>
> So, in order to “quantify suffering”, you must do it both quantitatively,
> and qualitatively.  You must point to an intrinsic quality that is the
> definition of words like ‘sharp’ and 'red'.  This will give you the
> required dictionary so you can know what ‘sharp’ or ‘red’ is phenomenally
> and intrinsically like.
>
> On Sun, May 10, 2020 at 1:53 PM Jamie D <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> The more I learn about consciousness, the brain etc, the more it seems we
>> already know how we work.
>>
>> One of my dreams has been to quantify suffering and wellbeing, in order
>> to “correct” our common justification frames, where people too-often assume
>> they know what other is going through, or that there isn’t anything more to
>> know.
>>
>> For instance, about a decade ago, I had a brief opiate addiction. My
>> father, a police chief, expressed contempt at my claim that I was in so
>> much pain. I wasn’t a dying cancer patient.
>> What pain could I claim to have had?
>>
>> It was a dark time that I’m now many years past. But as an adoptee,
>> separated from my mother as an infant, and having extreme, lifelong
>> relational distress, that seems so natural for others to look upon with
>> contempt, ...
>> As weak as I might appear in one frame, (having chosen to use opiates)
>> there are many others where I’m regarded as brutally vigilant in my
>> acceptance of being disconnected, going alone, or just accepting reality in
>> ways others aren’t comfortable with...because it wasn’t a choice.
>>
>> Anyway, what I meant to ask in this email was this:
>>
>> Why can’t we measure valence and affect by measuring physiology? I read
>> an article on suffering in the wild, which claimed the natural world is
>> full of suffering because many animals have higher cortisol levels than
>> domestic counterparts.
>>
>> What would it take to measure a persons overall wellbeing? Could we one
>> day refine our language as to normalize high empathetic intelligence? What
>> better could direct our ethics?
>> --
>> -Jamie
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