Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
> Brent meeker writes:
>> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>> Brent Meeker writes:
>>>
>>>> I would say that many complex mechanical systems react to "pain" in a way similar to simple animals. For example, aircraft have automatic shut downs and fire extinguishers. They can change the flight controls to reduce stress on structures. Whether they feel this "pain" is a different question. I think they feel it if they incorporate it into a narrative to which values are attached for purposes of learning ("Don't do that again, it hurts."). But that's my theory of qualia - a speculative one.
>>> Pain mostly comes before learning. Infants are born with the
>>> ability to experience pain, so they learn to avoid activities which
>>> cause pain.
>> But the learning is a higher level thing. The experience has two levels. One is just hardwired reactions, pulling your hand back from the fire. The aircraft already has this, as to some very simple organisms. The other is part of consciousness, which I speculate is creating a narrative in memory with attached emotional values. Babies certainly feel pain in the first sense, but they seem to have to learn to cry when hurt. I've accidentally stuck one of my infant children when diapering them and gotten no reaction.
>
> Pulling your hand back from the fire is primitive spinal reflex: you actually do this
> before you perceive the pain. This is straightforward wiring and occurs even if the
> connection between brain and spinal cord is severed. There is an intermediate step,
> however, between that and the learning and emotional reaction which goes with
> the painful stimulus, which might be called the raw perception of pain, and which is
> probably hardwired during brain development.
>
> There is actually controversy about whether neonates experience pain. Operations
> such as cardiac surgery were done with just a muscle relaxant to stop the baby from
> moving when its chest was cut open. None of them complained afterwards... These
> days, proper analgesia is used, as all the evidence short of asking them suggests that
> neonates *do* experience pain.
>
>>> It seems to be hardwired at a very basic level, which
>>> makes me think that it ought to be easier to implement in an AI than
>>> more complex cognitive processes and behaviours. But how would
>>> a behaviour such as an aircraft's reaction to a fire on board be
>>> characterised as "painful" in the way an infant putting its hand in a
>>> flame is painful? If the aircraft's experience is not painful, what can
>>> do to make it more like the baby's?
>> Add the narrative memory with values attached and then the ability to review that memory when contemplating future actions.
>
> Putting your hand in a flame hurts before you have had any time to contemplate
> the hurt. It hurts just as much if you're an intelligent contemplative type, a
> complete dolt or a young child.
But even a complete dolt forms memories. The question is does it hurt just as much if you're a fish? an sponge? a paramecium?
Brent Meeker
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Received on Thu Dec 14 2006 - 17:37:02 PST