Jamie:

I’m interested in what Gregg and others have to say.
I contend that there is indeed unconscious suffering.

Best regards,

Waldemar

Waldemar A Schmidt, PhD, MD
(Perseveret et Percipiunt)
503.631.8044

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. (A Einstein)






> On Aug 12, 2018, at 2:04 PM, Mathew Jamie Dunbaugh <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Gregg,
> 
> I understand that Skinner discovered the natural selection of behavior, that basically reward selects for and reproduces behaviors, and punishment eliminates behaviors. 
> 
> The psychological term for well-being and suffering is valence. The pressing question is what are the physical determinants of valence?
> 
> Even the smallest single-celled organisms respond to reward and punishment, so how can we say that nervous systems are required for behavioral selection? I suppose the behavior of single-celled organisms can't diversity or vary that much, but they do have aversive and attractive responses to stimuli. 
> 
> I can't imagine a more pressing concern for ethics than to solve the mystery of valence. 
> 
> The theory that I most agree with is that suffering is a form of attentional capture. One might ask, does the feeling of nausea cause more attentional capture than a warm shower? I don't think so.
> 
> Behavioral investment theory talks about how suffering inhibits behavior and pleasure leads to behavioral investment. 
> 
> The problem of valence also boils down to the mystery of consciousness. I'm inclined to believe that Jesse Prinz's AIR theory is very close to a theory of consciousness, but I'm not sure if it encompasses all of subjective experience. Prinz argues that qualia is based on attention, and his book The Conscious Brain provides a theory of consciousness based on a theory of attention:
> 
> ‘AIR’ (‘Attended Intermediate-level Representation’) theory of consciousness. According to this theory, consciousness arises when intermediate-level perceptual representations (representations of the world at a certain stage in the brain’s processing) undergo changes that allow them to become available to working memory. 
> 
> Here is a summary of his book The Conscious Brain
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__philosophynow.org_issues_104_The-5FConscious-5FBrain-5Fby-5FJesse-5FJ-5FPrinz&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=8hb1Lo2WmNF5SuVSzkRstdKyszJoU8wd2BFiPNsXeP8&s=iPojxkuM9W8gSzpDnsKaacthGIvJMzGhLtRD3vZf1WY&e= <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__philosophynow.org_issues_104_The-5FConscious-5FBrain-5Fby-5FJesse-5FJ-5FPrinz&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=jhRNOUW91nRKJ_UC-cdIpp_TR7xhasRUtKegjK3j2Dk&s=jlsmOFAkDZ1v07vPrJSW9Dneot6RNoV_jRW9lCdGLVo&e=>
> 
> So, I believe that suffering is attentional capture, and this at least relates to the idea of a sort of "behavioral capture" as punishment. The question is, what is the relationship between attention and behavior? Clearly we have unconscious behavior, but I don't agree that we have unconscious suffering. Suffering, in my understanding, doesn't occur unless it occurs in awareness (which is a broad form of attention; and attention is concentrated awareness) 
> 
> Suffering is used by evolution to inhibit behavior and it does this by capuring attention. 
> 
> A problem here is what do I mean by "capture" of attention? I do mean something like a mosquito buzzing in your ear, and I think a screaming broken leg is just an increased version of that. 
> 
> I'm confident that attentional capture at least has a strong relationship to suffering. There's a reason Buddhist call the cessation of suffering "liberation". But I can't explain why it should feel the way it does, and this is perhaps the most important question to solve for ethics. 
> 
> Jamie
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