On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 5:28 PM, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com>wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 11:08 PM, Terren Suydam <terren.suy...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > Hi Telmo, > > > > Yes, those are good counter examples. > > > > But I think to say "pain and pleasure are fine-tuned by evolution..." is > a > > sleight of hand. Pain and pleasure are phenomenological primitives. If > > evolution created those primitives, how did it do that? By what > mechanism? > > Completely agree. I mean pain and pleasure as things that you can > observe with an fMRI machine. As for the 1p experience of pain and > pleasure... wish I knew. I don't think evolution created these > primitives in this latter sense. > > > Another way to think of this is to acknowledge that pain signals are > > mediated by special nerves in the nervous system. But what makes those > > nerves any different from a nerve that carries information about gentle > > pressure? You may be able to point to different neuroreceptors used, but > > then that shifts the question to why different neuroreceptors should > result > > in different characters of experience. > > Yes, I've always been puzzled by that. > > My hunch is that the 'pain' neurons feed into circuits that can be characterized objectively in a certain way, that is distinguishable from circuits that receive sensory information with no particular pain/pleasure valence, so that it doesn't matter in particular what the neurotransmitters or hormones are that mediate the circuitry itself. Rather, it is the cybernetic description of the circuits in question that provide the "hook" on which to hang distinguishable identification of various kinds of qualia. Pressing forward with the entropy idea, perhaps the pain circuitry has the result of increasing the (information-theoretic) entropy of the global mind, and therefore we experience it as pain. Keep in mind I am not "arguing for" this - just exploring the idea. Maybe you or someone else who is sympathetic to this style of inquiry can improve on the idea of entropy... it certainly has its problems. Terren > One way out of this to posit that phenomenological primitives are never > > "created" but are identified somehow with a particular characterization > of > > an objective state of affairs, > > I suspect the same. > > > the challenge being to characterize the > > mapping between the objective and the phenomenological. That is my aim > with > > my flawed idea above. > > Cool. Sorry for not getting what you were saying at first. You still > have to deal with my counter-examples though, I'd say... (forgetting > the evolutionary rant) > > Telmo. > > > Terren > > > > > > On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 4:52 PM, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> > > wrote: > >> > >> On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 10:36 PM, Terren Suydam < > terren.suy...@gmail.com> > >> wrote: > >> > This is close to an idea I have been mulling over for some time... > that > >> > the > >> > source of the phenomenological feeling of pleasure is in some way > >> > identified > >> > with decreases in entropy, and pain is in some way identified with > >> > increases > >> > in entropy. It is a way to map the subjective experience of pain and > >> > pleasure to a 3p description of, say, a nervous system. Damage to the > >> > body > >> > (associated with pain) can usually (always?) be characterized in terms > >> > of a > >> > sudden increase in entropy of the body. Perhaps this is also true in > the > >> > mental domain, so that emotional loss (or e.g. embarrassment) can also > >> > be > >> > characterized as an increase in entropy of one's mental models, but > this > >> > is > >> > pure speculation. The case is even harder to make with pleasure. It > >> > would be > >> > weird if it were true, but so far it is the only way I know of to map > >> > pleasure and pain onto anything objective at all. > >> > >> Hi Terren, > >> > >> Interesting idea, but I can think of a number of counter examples: > >> cold/freezing, boredom, the rush of taking risks, masochism (for some > >> people), the general preference for freedom as opposed to being under > >> control, booze, .... > >> > >> I suspect life is just meaningless from the outside. I'd say that pain > >> and pleasure are fine-tunned by evolution to maximise the > >> survivability of species in an environment that is largely also > >> generated by evolution. It's a strange loop. > >> > >> > Terren > >> > > >> > > >> > On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 4:18 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi <use...@rudnyi.ru> > >> > wrote: > >> >> > >> >> On 10.04.2013 07:16 meekerdb said the following: > >> >>> > >> >>> On 4/9/2013 12:19 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: > >> >> > >> >> > >> >> ... > >> >> > >> >>>> I have seen that this could be traced to Schrödinger’s What is > >> >>>> Life?, reread his chapter on Order, Disorder and Entropy and made > >> >>>> my comments > >> >>>> > >> >>>> > http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2013/04/schrodinger-disorder-and-entropy.html > >> >>> > >> >>> > >> >>>> > >> >>> > >> >>> Still tilting at that windmill? > >> >>> > >> >>> "A) From thermodynamic tables, the mole entropy of silver at > standard > >> >>> conditions S(Ag, cr) = 42.55 J K-1 mol-1 is bigger than that of > >> >>> aluminum S(Al, cr) = 28.30 J K-1 mol-1. Does it mean that there is > >> >>> more disorder in silver as in aluminium?" > >> >>> > >> >>> Yes, there is more disorder in the sense that raising the > temperature > >> >>> of a mole of Ag 1deg increases the number of accessible conduction > >> >>> electron states available more than does raising the temperature of > a > >> >>> mole of Al does. > >> >>> > >> >>> I agree that disorder is not necessarily a good metaphor for > entropy. > >> >>> But dispersal of energy isn't always intuitively equal to entropy > >> >>> either. Consider dissolving ammonium nitrate in water. The process > is > >> >>> endothermic, so the temperature drops and energy is absorbed, but > >> >>> the process goes spontaneously because the entropy increases; the > are > >> >>> a lot more microstates accessible in the solution even at the lower > >> >>> temperature. > >> >>> > >> >> > >> >> You'd better look at what biologist say. For example: > >> >> > >> >> http://www.icr.org/article/270/ > >> >> > >> >> “and that the idea of their improving rather than harming organisms > is > >> >> contrary to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which tells us that > >> >> matter and > >> >> energy naturally tend toward greater randomness rather than greater > >> >> order > >> >> and complexity.” > >> >> > >> >> Do you like it? > >> >> > >> >> Evgenii > >> >> > >> >> -- > >> >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > >> >> Groups > >> >> "Everything List" group. > >> >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, > send > >> >> an > >> >> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > >> >> To post to this group, send email to > everything-list@googlegroups.com. > >> >> Visit this group at > >> >> http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > >> >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > >> >> > >> >> > >> > > >> > -- > >> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > >> > Groups > >> > "Everything List" group. > >> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send > >> > an > >> > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > >> > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com > . > >> > Visit this group at > >> > http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > >> > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > >> > > >> > > >> > >> -- > >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups > >> "Everything List" group. > >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send > an > >> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > >> To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > >> Visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > >> > >> > > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > "Everything List" group. > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en > . > > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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