Quite a few things to unpack, so I will try to hit the highlights and then see where to go from there.
There is the nature of pain and of suffering; “the meaning of consciousness”; my formulation for behavioral selection (and the difference between cells and animals); the issue of valence; the nature of psychological well-being (as valence; the relationship between consciousness and attention (and pain and suffering) and all of this is conceptual grounding for the mental-animal dimension of investment/learning evolution that connects to memes, which ultimately are selected in part via processes of human justification.
Here are some thoughts (happy to pick up on any explicit threads):
I tend to agree with the idea that experiential subjectivity or sentience is key to the moral problem of pain and suffering and well-being, although the layered nature of consciousness makes it complicated. The argument that sentience is necessary was made both by Sam Harris in The Moral Landscape<https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/143917122X> and is part of my Nested Model of Well-being<https://www.gregghenriques.com/uploads/2/4/3/6/24368778/nested_model.pdf> (which, BTW, is the 7th branch on the UTUA Tree, and thus pretty central to the whole ToK/UTUA system). I don’t think a tree or a single cell has the subjective/sentient experience of pain and thus I don’t think the same moral calculus is involved in cutting a tree down relative to killing an animal. I have no idea if spiders or insects feel pain; they might or might not. I think the evidence is pretty strong that fish do. I consider myself essentially certain (given the philosophical/epistemological problems/caveats associated knowing about another’s experiential subjectivity) that dogs and primates feel pain. Here is a blog on The Four Levels of Pain<https://my.psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-knowledge/201210/the-four-levels-pain> and here is another one on why pain should be considered a (basic) psychological phenomena, All Pain is Psychological<http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-knowledge/201406/all-pain-is-psychological>.
Regarding the problem of the nature of consciousness as subjective, sentient experience, I am a fan of “global-neuronal workspace theories,” such as first offered by Bernie Baars and updated with brain research by Dehaene<https://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Brain-Deciphering-Codes-Thoughts/dp/0670025437>. Indeed, working with my doc student Mandi Quay Eggenberger, we developed “a new theater of consciousness that combined Baars (consistent with Dehaene’s brain based work) and the unified view, in The Theater of Consciousness: A New Map<https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-knowledge/201603/the-theater-consciousness-new-map>. Consistent with your citation and conception of attention and attentional capture, experiential consciousness is considered to be an information integration center that provides a relatively holistic “mirror” of the animal-environment relationship. It is separate from and regulates procedural action, which can often occur without any (or very minimal) experiential conscious awareness (think of old habits you do automatically).
A key aspect of BIT is how it combines Skinner’s views with evolutionary theory, neuroscience and a cognitive-computational viewpoint. One of the central ways it achieves this is via the architecture of the human mind diagram, which is reviewed and summarized in the four levels of pain blog. Crucial to the diagram/architecture is the “P – M => E” formulation that combines operant theory, with computational neuroscience findings and basic phenomenology. The P stands for perception. This perception can be considered both via conscious perception (what you experience when you open you eyes and see the world) and via more objective analyses of perception; for example, how we might study what an animal perceives. The “M” stands for motivation. This refers to the goal states (both approach and avoidance) of the animal. The “E” stands for emotion, which is the “perceptual response set” that is activated in response to changes in P relative to M and energizes and orients the animal toward action to restore equilibrium (i.e., return the discrepancy of P to M to desired parameters). I encourage all my students to get practice observing their experiential systems operating this way. In a blog that has a perhaps a bit more self-disclosure than might be ideal, I map my own observations of my P – M => E experiential self (and accompanying justifying narratives): Perceptions, Motives, and Emotions: A Control Theory Model<https://my.psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-knowledge/201306/perceptions-motives-and-emotions-control-theory-model>. Here is a related blog that explains how the combination of the experiential system and the justification system provide a framework that accounts for the psychology of addiction<https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-knowledge/201711/is-addiction-disease-the-brain>. If there is an important general applied lesson in these musings, it is important to familiarize yourself with applying the PME formulation to your experiential consciousness.
Note, embedded in the neuro-behavioral investment system in general and especially in the M and E of the operant experiential system, are the “valuation” aspects of the system. What is important and what ought to I do about it. Pain (and related negative/avoidance affects of fear, disgust, and sadness) is nature’s alarm signal that there is a problem/injury and you had better pay attention to it and work to change it. If it did not insist on “attention capture” it would lose much of its functionality.
Jamie, you are correct to point out that cells engage in approach and avoidance processes and have basic learning capacities. BIT does not say that behavioral selection does not occur at that level. It says that animal learning requires a nervous system which coordinates behavioral selection at the level of the animal as a whole. A subtle difference, but one worth noting.
Finally, a point about well-being and valence. Valence, in well-being research, usually refers to the experiential “hedonic tone”; that is, the ratio of positive to negative feelings an individual has at any given time about a situation or event. Hedonic tone is crucial for the concept of well-being, but as the Nested Article makes clear, it is not the be-all-and-end-all of well-being. It requires many other considerations.
G
From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Mathew Jamie Dunbaugh
Sent: Sunday, August 12, 2018 8:17 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Behavioral Selection
Well, it depends on what you mean by conscious. There are various meanings to the word. One is to be cognizant and aware of something by thinking about it or having a representation of it in short-term memory.
Another meaning is simply subjective or phenomenal, first-person experience, thought to be made of qualia.
I contend that pain is necessarily an experience, and when pain is not felt, it doesn't even count as pain.
However, one can be in pain, truly feeling it, but not be cognizant of it, and not have the idea in their head that they're in pain.
Meditators often realize that when they started meditating and paying closer attention to their experience, they became cognizant of pain they hadn't been paying attention to.
To me, this means that the pain was felt but the idea hadn't dawned on the person that they were in pain. So they were conscious in terms of feeling, but not in terms of cognizance.
Do you contend that there can be pain that isn't even felt?
On Sun, Aug 12, 2018 at 4:14 PM, [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
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]<mailto:[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://philosophynow.org/issues/104/The_Conscious_Brain_by_Jesse_J_Prinz<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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