Saying evolution created pain and pleasure is a bit of a cop out. When we say evolution created mammals, we can theorize about a progression of material forms (and environments) that led to mammals.
So *how* did evolution do that? What sort of progression could you theorize about that led to pain and pleasure? I think to do that, assuming mechanism, you still have to come up with something that maps those feelings to 3p processes. Terren On Feb 24, 2012 12:20 AM, "meekerdb" <[email protected]> wrote: > On 2/23/2012 6:00 PM, Terren Suydam wrote: > >> On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 7:21 PM, meekerdb<[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> On 2/23/2012 2:49 PM, Terren Suydam wrote: >>> >>> As wild or counter-intuitive as it may be though, it really has no >>> consequences to speak of in the ordinary, mundane living of life. To >>> paraphrase Eliezer Yudkowsky, "it has to add up to normal". On the >>> other hand, once AGIs start to appear, or we begin to merge more >>> explicitly with machines, then the theories become more important. >>> Perhaps then comp will be made illegal, so as to constrain freedoms >>> given to machines. I could certainly see there being significant >>> resistance to humans augmenting their brains with computers... maybe >>> that would be illegal too, in the interest of control or keeping a >>> level playing field. Is that what you mean? >>> >>> >>> There will be legal and ethical questions about how we and machines >>> should >>> treat one another. Just being conscious won't mean much though. As >>> Jeremy >>> Bentham said of animals, "It's not whether they can think, it's whether >>> they >>> can suffer." >>> >>> Brent >>> >> That brings up the interesting question of how you could explain which >> conscious beings are capable of suffering and which ones aren't. I'm >> sure some people would make the argument that anything we might call >> conscious would be capable of suffering. One way or the other it would >> seem to require a theory of consciousness in which the character of >> experience can be mapped somehow to 3p processes. >> >> For instance, pain I can make sense of in terms of what it feels like >> for a being's structure to become "less organized" though I'm not sure >> how to formalize that, and I'm not completely comfortable with that >> characterization. However, the reverse idea that pleasure might be >> what it feels like for one's structure to become "more organized" >> seems like a stretch and hard to connect with the reality of, for >> example, a nice massage. >> > > I don't think becoming more or less organized has any direct bearing on > pain or pleasure. Physical pain and pleasure are reactions built-in by > evolution for survival benefits. If a fire makes you too hot, you move away > from it, even though it's not "disorganizing" you. On the other hand, > cancer is generally painless in its early stages. And psychological > suffering can be very bad without any physical damage. I don't think > suffering requires consciousness, at least not human-like consciousness, > but psychological suffering might require consciousness in the form of > self-reflection. > > Brent > > > >> Terren >> >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To post to this group, send email to > everything-list@googlegroups.**com<[email protected]> > . > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@ > **googlegroups.com <everything-list%[email protected]>. > For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/** > group/everything-list?hl=en<http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en> > . > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
