I do not find Paul's book completely convincing. Randolph M. Nesse's book "Good
Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary
Psychiatry" shows much more clearly that bad feelings prevent us from doing
things which are bad for us. They are threat avoidance programs from our genes.
His remark about dreams are interesting nevertheless. He mentions for instance
this paper from Antti Revonsuo, "The reinterpretation of dreams: An
evolutionary hypothesis of the function of dreaming" in Behavioral and Brain
Sciences, 23(6) (2000). 877–901; 904–1018;
1083–1121.http://behavioralhealth2000.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/The-reinterpretation-of-dreams-An-evolutionary-hypothesis-of-the-function-of-dreaming.pdfRevonsuo
argues one function of dreams may be to simulate threatening events. They may
help to improve threat prevention by predicting dangerous situations and
preparing us for unkown dangers. Some fears seem to be hardcoded but this
method has limits. For example we are much more afraid of spiders and snakes
than of cars and fast food which are more dangerous to us in the modern
worldhttps://nautil.us/how-evolution-designed-your-fear-236858/-J.
-------- Original message --------From: glen <[email protected]> Date:
6/3/24 11:04 PM (GMT+01:00) To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [FRIAM]
Unpleasant dreams I had a conversation with a psychiatrist friend of mine
wherein she assumed the dichotomy between "good feelings" and "bad feelings"
(e.g. an angry or relieved reaction to some thing like the Trump verdict).
Through about an hour of conversation, I'd tried to convince her that dichotomy
is false. Bad things are good and good things are bad. The valence we assign is
post-hoc. I failed, of course. But...I feel the same way about phobias. It's a
bit trite to suggest that we like exploring our fears in a safe environment
like at a movie theater with a friend or two. But it's testament to the milieu
that monsters vs treasures is a false dichotomy. And it goes beyond some
complementarity like banking present pain for future pleasure. It's truly a
dual. The highs *are* the lows and vice versa. If there is such a thing as free
will, your assignment of valence might be the only freedom you have.I don't
know if Bloom explores this aspect. But the body of work spawned from Friston
and the minimization of surprisal targets it directly. It's reasonable to
believe that *agency* is what provides the common substructure for an
explanatory model of the ascription of valence to an experience. The
hypothetical to explore is whether those experiences that promote agency are
more often ascribed as (or felt like) "good" ones, whether painful,
pleasurable, fearful, triumphant, or whatever the token ascribed.On 6/3/24
13:15, Jochen Fromm wrote:> Did you notice that some of the most successful
movies from Spielberg are about our deepest fears? Jurassic Park is about
monsters from the past. Jaws is about monsters which lurk in the deep blue sea.
Indiana Jones is about monsters (and treasures) hiding in dark tombs.> > > Paul
Boom remarks in his book "The Sweet Spot" that psychologists have long known
that unpleasant dreams are more frequent than pleasant ones. Why is that so? Do
unpleasant dreams prepare us for possible dangers or are we just relieved that
the are over if they end?> >
https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-sweet-spot-paul-bloom?variant=40262533840930--
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