Thanks for all the replies.
I just found this article that seems close to what I was looking for.

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov_pmc_articles_PMC2756702_&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=Vg2-6yCV-W8zkk1vYFly8RIzGl0NbL-AWwEY_18w9wY&s=5IVrxrQtGx0Y0Eq_j1fMntWXjC5fGEmShcaMyJdMnhE&e=

BTW, this interest came after reading "How Emotions Are Made". I liked her
concept of "body budget" which jives with Gregg's emphasis on behavioral
investment. However, her emphasis on social constructionism was painful to
listen to, because it seems to come close to justifying dishonesty, or
apathy about finding justice or any unifying understanding.
Her struggle to place herself between social constructionism and science
could take a hint from the TOK.

The attached article was more in line with what I'm looking for.

Here's a short list:

The startle response is a reliable measurement of negative valence, in that
it's reliably larger in high-arousal negative stimuli than high arousal
positive stimuli.
However, the startle response is unreliable for discrete emotional states,
which seem to be found in the brain rather than peripheral nervous
responses.

Disgust is associated with insula activation

"Frontal EEG asymmetry" reflects levels of approach motivation (in left
hemisphere) and avoidance motivation (in right hemisphere), which arguably
match levels of positive and negative valence.

(it's still disputed whether or not valence is separate from approach vs
avoid motivation).

Frontal EEG asymmetry seemed to predispospeople to pleasant emotions, but
more recent studies suggest that frontal asymmetry reflects the relative
balance between approach vs avoidance.
(maybe I can measure this with my Muse headset)

Frontal EEG asymmetry:
Greater left-sided = approach
Greater right sided = avoid

The article also explores behavior, vocal pitch, facial expression, and
others.

My goal in this, as a developer, is to explore ways of generating knowledge
about ourselves, about reality, as well as satisfying a widespread need to
connect, vis some technology.

Perhaps our physiology could be measured and expressed transparently in
real time to those we want to connect with, as honest signals, to get
around the toxic problem of manipulation and alienation.

Some people are legitimately victims, and others play victims, making it
hard for some to see the difference. If we had reliable, un-fakeable
measures of how we feel, wouldn't we feel profoundly safe and accepted with
each other, having the "authority" present?
What else would God be that that which controls our feelings? The heart?
That would be the authority that should both free and unify us.

Such an innovation would fit with the long term trend towards increasing
subjective transparency (and connection) in hominid evolution.

At the same time, there's no getting away from responal responsibility, and
it would be nice to settle exactly how people should go about taking
responsibility for themselves. If you're totally confused, what
responsibility can you take (although, perhaps you chose to lose that
power).

The bottom line is that we are creatures of purpose. If we do our best to
remain engaged with value, and don't fall back into the void, we are less
likely to lose our sanity via losing contact with value, and less likely to
suffer, having clarity of purpose.

Worry, to me, comes from lack of clarity about what matters, or what to do.
There is no worry when you know exactly what to do and you've taken full
responsibility for all of yourself, and done your best.

We must know our "why" and if it doesn't make you cry, it's probably not
it.

On Mon, May 11, 2020, 12:26 PM Chance McDermott <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> 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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