Vladimir_Nesov comments on Raising the Sanity Waterline - Less Wrong

112 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 12 March 2009 04:28AM

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Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 13 March 2009 01:23:40AM 0 points [-]

pjeby:

Not really: there are two utility systems, not one. [...]

You are professing these unorthodox claims instead of communicating them. Why should I listen to anything you say on this issue?

Comment author: Nick_Tarleton 13 March 2009 01:35:34AM 2 points [-]

Now that the idea has been singled out in hypothesis space, you can evaluate its plausibility on your own, even without supporting argument.

I didn't realize there was an orthodoxy saying that humans have one utility system.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 13 March 2009 01:50:53AM 0 points [-]

Given how little we are given to go on, evaluating the plausibility of a vaguely suggested hypothesis is hard work. One should only do it if one sufficiently expects it to lead to fruition, otherwise you can solve the riddles posed by the Oracle of White Noise till the end of time. Maybe a proper writeup in a separate post will do the trick.

Comment author: pjeby 13 March 2009 03:24:37AM 2 points [-]

I don't see how they're even remotely unorthodox. Most of what I said is verifiable from your own personal experience.... unless you're claiming that if having sex gives you pleasure, then you're in constant pain when you're not having sex!

However, if you must have the blessings of an authority (which I believe is what "orthodox" means), perhaps you'll find these excerpts of interest:

In addition to behavioral data, evidence from the neurosciences is increasingly in accord with the partial independence of positive and negative evaluative mechanisms or systems (Berntson, Boysen & Cacioppo, in press; Gray, 1987, 1991). The notion dates back at least to the experimental studies of Olds (1958: Olds & Milner, 1954), who spearheaded a literature identifying separate neural mechanisms to be related to the subjective states of pleasure and pain.

...

In an intriguing study that bears on functional rather than stochastic independence, Goldstein and Strube (in press) demonstrated the separability of positive and negative affect within a specific situation and time and the uncoupled activation of positive and negative processes after success and failure feedback, respectively.

The paper containing these two excerpts (from the 1994 APA Bulletin), is probably worth reading in more detail; you can find a copy here.

So, at least in what might be loosely considered "my" field, nothing I said in the post you're referencing is exactly what I'd call "unorthodox".

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