[starbugs]

> Emotions are concepts our internal model has learned when trying to model itself.

Do you have a source to underpin that claim? (Honest question.)

> For a system to experience what we describe as pain, it needs to receive sensory input which it predicts signals that something is damaging its internal state, and then model/describe/represent itself as something that has this experience.

And then the system would feel pain? It doesn't sound convincing. I can model everything I want in my brain, but that certainly doesn't equate experiencing the feeling of pain. What about a headache? Do I describe myself without a headache and the difference to the actual "model" is my pain experience? It sounds a bit too left-brained to me, sorry.

> Such as system would, like you do, believe it is experiencing pain.

How do you know? I think that's a pretty bold claim. Also, pain is not a believe, it's an experience of a feeling?

[raindeer2]

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]

> 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]

> 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 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/

> 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]

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]

> Unless you really claim that modeling "pain" as some kind of variable in an algorithm can be equivalent to a biological being feeling pain?

Yes, I do. I guess it all boils down to whether or not you think the hard problem of consciousness is actually a problem or not. I doubt it is, but it is a totally respectable position if you do :)

> Where exactly in the cited paper is the claim that emotions are a belief? Can't find it.

As I wrote in my previous response, you can call it predictions too. Predictions are usually beliefs about the future. In the predictive brain literature, it is also used as predictions about the present. I use belief as the output of some inference algorithm that needs to deal with uncertainty.

Here is a quote from the paper: "The brain continually constructs concepts and creates categories to identify what the sensory inputs are, infers a causal explanation for what caused them, and drives action plans for what to do about them. When the internal model creates an emotion concept, the eventual categorization results in an instance of emotion."

But you are right, the paper talks more about how emotional categories are created, and dodges the question of how the "subjective experience of having an emotion" emerges. In my mind, the step is not far though, and boils down to, as said above, how you view the hard problem or consciousness. That we "feel" stuff is a result of an algorithm/model that describes ourselves as having experiences, which is a good model, since how else would we describe ourselves? My belief is that the progress in AI and neuroscience will prove me right :)

[starbugs]

> whether or not you think the hard problem of consciousness is actually a problem or not

Depends on what constitutes a "problem" in this context. But based on my interpretation of what you probably want to express with this sentence, yes, I think consciousness is a problem (for your theory). Otherwise, all of my previous comments wouldn't have made that much sense.

> Predictions are usually beliefs about the future.

I am not sure if I would agree that predictions and beliefs can simply be declared identical so easily. A belief doesn't need to be based on actual data and it doesn't have to be about the future while a prediction, by definition, is. Certain beliefs also seem to be emergent in humans. Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain the independent emergence of religion and belief in god. Beliefs are not necessarily emotions and that's why I have a hard time with the conflation of the two terms. "Predictions about the present" sounds more like a technical term to me. It doesn't make that much sense in the original meaning of the term "prediction". (I understand that it's used that way in many scientific works. Still, in this context, I think it's important to distinguish otherwise we end up redefining the meaning of words.)

> dodges the question of how the "subjective experience of having an emotion" emerges

Yea, it's convenient, right? But I think these are the central points of my argument that you brush away so swiftly. You won't get around subjective experience and consciousness. And how would you go about proving that an algorithm can have subjective experience and "feel" pain or emotions? And if you really believe that this is possible, how do you make sure that in your research nothing extremely unethical happens? By your definition, the Sims may evolve to something that could be protected by certain rights soon? ;)

I could imagine that in reality all of that isn't needed. Whether the algorithm really feels something or not - it doesn't matter as long as the expression is realistic enough for humans to believe that it feels something. Then you get the consciousness "injected" into your algorithm from the outside. Can you convince someone with a realistic sophisticated simulation that something is conscious even though it isn't? Probably. Still, it won't get you anywhere. Nevertheless, I find that to be a much more likely avenue than that we will ever be able to prove that an algorithm can experience feelings in a way that is equivalent to biological beings. I also don't think this kind of research is all that beneficial to us as humans, especially when mixed with advances in AI. But good luck with all of that and thanks for the references!