From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Wed Sep 18 2002 - 20:32:49 MDT
gts writes
> > ...by "unconscious motives" we generally
> > mean motives that would be conscious normally and fall into the
> > general category exemplified by lust, hate, love, jelousy, revenge,
> > admiration, etc. I might be unconsciously motivated to find the
> > defendent guilty just because he said something nasty to someone
> > that looked wrong to me. Or I might love someone, and then have
> > it pointed out to me the almost certain presence of an unconscious
> > motivation because of her resemblance to my mother from years ago.
> > Things like that.
>
> Perhaps we should then speak of "drives" in addition to "motivations."
> To my way of thinking, a drive is a primitive motivation. I would say
> you have a basic drive to live, which is the motivation (or drive) that
> drives your heartbeat. Is that language more acceptable to you?
Probably not "drive to live". Marvin Minsky somewhat famously
pointed out that we do not have an instinct to avoid death. The
point, as I recall, was that we have instinctual urges to avoid
pain and so on, but that death was too recent a concept.
Well, so what kind of "drives" do we have? One is a drive to
eat, another to fornicate, another to avoid pain, get warm,
and so on (I guess). These seem somehow different to me than
would be a *drive* to beat one's heart, or twitch the knee in
response to a doctor's hammer, or break into a sweat when
terrified.
Sorry, the discussion of Freud's libido ;-) didn't do anything
for me.
> > BTW, would you consider having your arm amputated and
> > replaced by a superior one that was more coordinated,
> > stronger, and more durable?
>
> Yes I would consider that.
I had inferred from the more general definition of
"you" that you espoused that this would not be the
case. So you must mean something different by your
"identifying" with your body or whatever you said,
because taken literally, one would not wish to see
one's hand or arm destroyed. So why would you
object to being uploaded again? You'd be in a
virtual reality, and everything presumably would
look and feel the same.
> > Yes, and this is where a number of us part company with you.
> > (You recall the example wherein the devotee to the political
> > cause throws himself into the fire knowing (and even presently
> > feeling intense pain and the intense heat) that he is choosing
> > the path of suffering and death. Again, to me, it is pedantic
> > (sorry) to insist that this is somehow giving him even more
> > sublime pleasure to take this action.
>
> I think it is unfathomable that someone would find happiness in suicide
> for a political cause, but my inability to understand such acts does not
> mean they are not driven by the pursuit of happiness.
Hmm. I may have an advantage here. I can imagine, especially
when much younger, sacrificing myself for a political or social
end. Given my paragraph above, I don't see how you can logically
say that they are driven by a pursuit of happiness (at least on
the ordinary meaning of words). [Attention---you *do* respond
to that paragraph below, but I'm too rushed to re-edit.]
> > What people like Rafael
> > and I *would* agree to is that he *is* choosing that action,
> > and so hence on some scale it *is* the more satisfactory of
> > his choices (and so then clearly *does* provide more satisfaction
> > in a sense), but that I think this to be most unhelpful in trying
> > to determine *why* he did it.
>
> Actually Rafael and I were pretty much in agreement on this idea that
> altruistic acts are driven by a motivation for the reward experience. It
> was Eliezer and you who suggested that people sometimes act
> altruistically separately from the desire for the rewarding experience
> that comes from helping others.
Oh.
> I replied by challenging anyone to show me a single person in this
> world who acts altruistically and who does not do so because it
> makes him feel good to do so.
And of course, we had our example of the fanatic sacrificing
himself at the clear and ongoing cost of great pain (as in
the above mentioned paragraph).
> We humans are genetically programmed to feel good about ourselves when
> we help others of our species. That is the only reason we do it.
Some people are so programmed. But even so, of course,
we continue to disagree on *what* they're exactly
programmed to do. I would say (of course) that they
are programmed to do the act *directly*, and either
rationalize that it gave them pleasure (which can
happen sometimes) OR actually experience a sensation
that this was the more *satisfactory* choice even though
it did not result in "feeling good" in the usual sense.
> I think honest altruists are completely aware of their real motivations
> for doing good. They will tell you they like to help others because they
> find it to be a rewarding experience.
Oh, no doubt. This is indeed *often* a factor, even a big
factor. But I don't think it exclusive.
> Dishonest altruists will tell you they sacrifice their own
> happiness for the greater good.
Sometimes indeed this is exactly the case. They are really
doing the activity for a reason that they might not even be
aware of, but a reason that you and I would agree that they
were motivated to do. They might keep talking to a boring
person at a party because they want to be liked, and then
tell themselves that it was just because they felt sorry
for the person. Attempting to distinguish and separate
motives in cases exactly like this was why I came up with
the VR Solipsist thought experiment (not that it can
address every case---it doesn't appear to help any on
this particular example).
> They hope to make you feel selfish and guilty, and
> perhaps guilt you into making a donation.
Yes.
> To respond to your paragraph above: why is it not sufficient to say that
> he did it for the satisfaction? Why do people do any act x, if not that
> by doing x they anticipate greater satisfaction than that which would be
> had by doing not-x? This satisfaction can be purely "mental" (as in the
> case of someone who makes the decision to harm himself physically to
> further a political cause) or it can be purely physical (as in the
> decision to eat). In both cases the reward circuitry of the brain is
> activated, giving the person a sense of satisfaction.
Yes, but now it's perhaps becoming clear that we didn't
mean quite the same thing by "reward circuitry". In this
sense, it may turn out that one of us is plainly wrong as
we learn more about the neurology. This would be a
wonderful example of how hidden assumptions made by
two parties took almost forever---and a great deal of
patience---to be unearthed.
Perhaps you would see almost every choice in this light.
Everything someone does affects their reward circuitry
in one way or another and *is* the deciding factor?
> But if someone shoots me in the head today, I will not emerge unscathed.
> I will cease to exist (as far we know). So it is not correct for me to
> say that my brain exists separately from me. Are you saying that you
> exist separately from your brain?
Those of us who adhere to the "information theory of identity",
as most fully explained in Mike Perry's book "Forever For All"
about cryonics, it's just the *information* that's important,
and, I would hastily add, whether that information gets "runtime".
It doesn't do my program any good, for example, to be loaded into
memory and then never run.
So right now, yes, destruction of my brain would kill me
forever. But that's only because I haven't made a backup.
In the future, I would like to be able to copy the pattern
of my identity into storage somewhere else so that if
a bad thing befalls me in one place, I can be "restored".
Needless to say, these issues about identity become
enormously thorny, and people have been debating it on
Extropians and Cryonet for literally a decade or more.
If the information that makes me me gets uploading into
a computer, and gets runtime, then I'm fine with that.
> > Don't you think that if there was some other magical
> > way to make the same proteins, then the genetic code
> > itself in your body could be dispensed with?
>
> That magical means can come about only if we take the instructions from
> our DNA and encode them into some other protein synthesizing device.
> This means the genes survive, even if in another form. As I wrote once
> to someone here, our genes can be recorded on cassette tapes if
> necessary. Genes are best considered items of *information*. They are
> *instructions*. They exist now in the form of biological material in the
> nucleus of each cell, but someday they may exist as digital 1's and 0's
> on a massive DVD disk.
Oh. Should have read your whole post, but happen to be in
an awful hurry again tonight.
> >> We can in theory dispense with genetic instructions that
> >> control, for example, the healing of wounds. But the
> >> genetic instructions that control our brain are crucial
> >> if we hope to keep our personalities intact.
> >
> > I don't see the difference...
>
> Each neuron in your brain contains your DNA. In your brain, only those
> genes that are relevant to the activity of the brain are active. Those
> genes control the activity of each neuron, and thus thought itself. Your
> personality is, to some degree, a function of your genes.
Yes, I see.
> Assuming for a moment that we can as you hope extract the personality
> from the body without need for the instructions encoded in the genes
> that control the brain, I see that a problem arises when such a
> personality is confronted by a novel experience. It is largely our genes
> that determine our response to novel experiences -- such responses are
> not 'learned behavior' and do not exist in some pre-recorded form in the
> idealized personality. The personality separated from its genetic
> instructions would be at a loss to handle the new experience.
When you say "It is largely our genes that determine our response
to novel experiences -- such responses are not 'learned behavior'
and do not exist in some pre-recorded form in the idealized
personality."
How could that be? Suppose that I suddenly see a tiger, and
run for my life. How did any DNA have time to be transcribed
and all the other necessary steps taken to finally produce my
response? Now, yes, our genes indirectly determine our
responses by causing the fabrications of proteins and neurons
so that memories can be recorded, and instinctual behavior
set up. But wait....
Okay, so maybe you mean a "new experience" in the sense of
someone gives me a billion dollars to go into cryonic
suspension tonight. That's *not* like running from a tiger
I admit. But the effective causal agents still appear to
me to be the way the neurons are set up ready to go, so
that I rather instantly have some reactions about that
strange offer without, again, any time for the DNA and
RNA to do their thing.
Lee
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