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Check out How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, by L. Barrett. But I probably take it a bit further than that :) The system would believe it is

Check out How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, by L. Barrett. But I probably take it a bit further than that :) The system would believe it is experiencing pain. Its model of itself would use the pain concept to describe itself, and it would believe it is experiencing it. And this description would be accurate since it is getting damaged. I would argue that pain, like any interpretation of sensory input, are believes. "experience of a feeling" is equal to interpreting sensory input in a certain way. But due to the way we are constructed, we cannot unbelieve certain things. It is like when you see a tree, you cannot decide to not see a tree after you have seen it. Or when you see a 2D projection of a 3D cube. You have to see the cube, even if you know it is not there since it is actually just a bunch of lines on a paper. This makes this type of belief different from other types of beliefs we hold which we easily can change our mind about, like what the weather will be like tomorrow. It's the same thing with pain. You cannot stop believing in the interpretation of the sensory data that we describe as pain. And this "pain belief" is tied to certain behaviors, like trying to avoid it, since it is built into our reward system that it is negative. The reason we cannot easily "unbelieve" pain is that it would be very dangerous if we could simply ignore it. This is also why we are wired so that love is so hard to unbelieve, reproduction would fail in a species that could easily change their mind on the "love belief" about their offspring or partners. If you think about phantom limb pain, it is quite clear that it is just a belief/model, and in that case an inaccurate one.

starbugs 3y ago
> I would argue that pain, like any interpretation of sensory input, are believes. "experience of a feeling" is equal to interpreting sensory input in a certain way. In other words: "Pain isn't real"? Are you serious? Again, is there any reliable source for that other than a whole book that probably doesn't even talk about what you claim? If it is in the book, can you give a detailed reference where to find it? And if so, does the book provide references to research underpinning those claims? Or did you just come up with that on your own? It sounds absolutely ridiculous to me. Any attempt to "model" the experience is prone to fail by lack of evidence because pain is, by definition, subjective. If you just search for the definitions of belief, emotion and pain, you will quickly find that their meanings are distinct. Claiming that pain is a belief is absurd.
- raindeer2 3y ago
  > In other words: "Pain isn't real"? Are you serious? Of course it is real. When I feel pain from an injury, the injury is very real, my pain sensor's signals are real and my brain's interpretation of those signals is real, and my behavior of trying to avoid further injury is real. > Again, is there any reliable source for that other than a whole book that probably doesn't even talk about what you claim? If it is in the book, can you give a detailed reference where to find it? And if so, does the book provide references to research underpinning those claims? Lisa Barrett is a very famous professor of neuroscience, so sure there is a lot of research in that book :) Here is a short video where she explains it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QfCvIJRtE0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QfCvIJRtE0 I also recommend her interviews with Lex Fridman. She talks more about emotions as predictions, but we mean the same thing. Here is a highly cited paper where she explains the theory: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27798257/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27798257/ > Or did you just come up with that on your own? It sounds absolutely ridiculous to me. Any attempt to "model" the experience is prone to fail by lack of evidence because pain is, by definition, subjective. Your pain is very subjective yes, but that just means that it is created by your internal model of the world and yourself, which has a unique subjective perspective of the world. > If you just search for the definitions of belief, emotion and pain, you will quickly find that their meanings are distinct. Claiming that pain is a belief is absurd. These words are normally not used in the way I use them, but the point is that emotions are outputs of our model of ourselves. These outputs you can call beliefs, predictions or interpretations if you like.
  - starbugs 3y ago
    I don't see how that changes anything about my point. Unless you really claim that modeling "pain" as some kind of variable in an algorithm can be equivalent to a biological being feeling pain? I will certainly have a look at the research, but I still believe it's not even talking about that point? Edit: Where exactly in the cited paper is the claim that emotions are a belief? Can't find it.
    - raindeer2 3y ago

starbugs 3y ago

> I would argue that pain, like any interpretation of sensory input, are believes. "experience of a feeling" is equal to interpreting sensory input in a certain way. In other words: "Pain isn't real"? Are you serious? Again, is there any reliable source for that other than a whole book that probably doesn't even talk about what you claim? If it is in the book, can you give a detailed reference where to find it? And if so, does the book provide references to research underpinning those claims? Or did you just come up with that on your own? It sounds absolutely ridiculous to me. Any attempt to "model" the experience is prone to fail by lack of evidence because pain is, by definition, subjective. If you just search for the definitions of belief, emotion and pain, you will quickly find that their meanings are distinct. Claiming that pain is a belief is absurd.

raindeer2 3y ago
> In other words: "Pain isn't real"? Are you serious? Of course it is real. When I feel pain from an injury, the injury is very real, my pain sensor's signals are real and my brain's interpretation of those signals is real, and my behavior of trying to avoid further injury is real. > Again, is there any reliable source for that other than a whole book that probably doesn't even talk about what you claim? If it is in the book, can you give a detailed reference where to find it? And if so, does the book provide references to research underpinning those claims? Lisa Barrett is a very famous professor of neuroscience, so sure there is a lot of research in that book :) Here is a short video where she explains it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QfCvIJRtE0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QfCvIJRtE0 I also recommend her interviews with Lex Fridman. She talks more about emotions as predictions, but we mean the same thing. Here is a highly cited paper where she explains the theory: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27798257/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27798257/ > Or did you just come up with that on your own? It sounds absolutely ridiculous to me. Any attempt to "model" the experience is prone to fail by lack of evidence because pain is, by definition, subjective. Your pain is very subjective yes, but that just means that it is created by your internal model of the world and yourself, which has a unique subjective perspective of the world. > If you just search for the definitions of belief, emotion and pain, you will quickly find that their meanings are distinct. Claiming that pain is a belief is absurd. These words are normally not used in the way I use them, but the point is that emotions are outputs of our model of ourselves. These outputs you can call beliefs, predictions or interpretations if you like.
- starbugs 3y ago
  I don't see how that changes anything about my point. Unless you really claim that modeling "pain" as some kind of variable in an algorithm can be equivalent to a biological being feeling pain? I will certainly have a look at the research, but I still believe it's not even talking about that point? Edit: Where exactly in the cited paper is the claim that emotions are a belief? Can't find it.
  - raindeer2 3y ago