Brent meeker writes:
> 
> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> > 
> > Brent Meeker writes:
> > 
> >> I would say that many complex mechanical systems react to "pain" in a way 
> >> similar to simple animals.  For example, aircraft have automatic shut 
> >> downs and fire extinguishers.  They can change the flight controls to 
> >> reduce stress on structures.  Whether they feel this "pain" is a different 
> >> question.  I think they feel it if they incorporate it into a narrative to 
> >> which values are attached for purposes of learning ("Don't do that again, 
> >> it hurts.").  But that's my theory of qualia - a speculative one.
> > 
> > Pain mostly comes before learning. Infants are born with the 
> > ability to experience pain, so they learn to avoid activities which 
> > cause pain. 
> 
> But the learning is a higher level thing.  The experience has two levels.  
> One is just hardwired reactions, pulling your hand back from the fire.  The 
> aircraft already has this, as to some very simple organisms.  The other is 
> part of consciousness, which I speculate is creating a narrative in memory 
> with attached emotional values.  Babies certainly feel pain in the first 
> sense, but they seem to have to learn to cry when hurt.  I've accidentally 
> stuck one of my infant children when diapering them and gotten no reaction.

Pulling your hand back from the fire is primitive spinal reflex: you actually 
do this 
before you perceive the pain. This is straightforward wiring and occurs even if 
the 
connection between brain and spinal cord is severed. There is an intermediate 
step,
however, between that and the learning and emotional reaction which goes with 
the painful stimulus, which might be called the raw perception of pain, and 
which is 
probably hardwired during brain development.

There is actually controversy about whether neonates experience pain. 
Operations 
such as cardiac surgery were done with just a muscle relaxant to stop the baby 
from 
moving when its chest was cut open. None of them complained afterwards... These 
days, proper analgesia is used, as all the evidence short of asking them 
suggests that 
neonates *do* experience pain.  
 
> >It seems to be hardwired at a very basic level, which 
> > makes me think that it ought to be easier to implement in an AI than 
> > more complex cognitive processes and behaviours. But how would 
> > a behaviour such as an aircraft's reaction to a fire on board be 
> > characterised as "painful" in the way an infant putting its hand in a 
> > flame is painful? If the aircraft's experience is not painful, what can 
> > do to make it more like the baby's?
> 
> Add the narrative memory with values attached and then the ability to review 
> that memory when contemplating future actions.

Putting your hand in a flame hurts before you have had any time to contemplate 
the hurt. It hurts just as much if you're an intelligent contemplative type, a 
complete dolt or a young child.

Stathis Papaioannou
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