On May 10, 2020, at 12:52 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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