Some arrangements of particles feel better than others. Why?
We have no general theories, only descriptive observations within the context of the vertebrate brain, about what produces pain and pleasure. It seems like there's a mystery here, a general principle to uncover.
Let's try to chart the mystery. I think we should, in theory, be able to answer the following questions:
(1) What are the necessary and sufficient properties for a thought to be pleasurable?
(2) What are the characteristic mathematics of a painful thought?
(3) If we wanted to create an artificial neural network-based mind (i.e., using neurons, but not slavishly patterned after a mammalian brain) that could experience bliss, what would the important design parameters be?
(4) If we wanted to create an AGI whose nominal reward signal coincided with visceral happiness -- how would we do that?
(5) If we wanted to ensure an uploaded mind could feel visceral pleasure of the same kind a non-uploaded mind can, how could we check that?
(6) If we wanted to fill the universe with computronium and maximize hedons, what algorithm would we run on it?
(7) If we met an alien life-form, how could we tell if it was suffering?
It seems to me these are all empirical questions that should have empirical answers. But we don't seem to have much for hand-holds which can give us a starting point.
Where would *you* start on answering these questions? Which ones are good questions, and which ones are aren't? And if you think certain questions aren't good, could you offer some you think are?
As suggested by shminux, here's some research I believe is indicative of the state of the literature (though this falls quite short of a full literature review):
Tononi's IIT seems relevant, though it only addresses consciousness and explicitly avoids valence. Max Tegmark has a formal generalization of IIT which he claims should apply to non-neural substrates. And although Tegmark doesn't address valence either, he posted a recent paper on arxiv noting that there *is* a mystery here, and that it seems topical for FAI research.
Current models of emotion based on brain architecture and neurochemicals (e.g., EMOCON) are somewhat relevant, though ultimately correlative or merely descriptive, and seem to have little universalization potential.
There's also a great deal of quality literature about specific correlates of pain and happiness- e.g., Building a neuroscience of pleasure and well-being and An fMRI-Based Neurologic Signature of Physical Pain. Luke covers Berridge's research in his post, The Neuroscience of Pleasure. Short version: 'liking', 'wanting', and 'learning' are all handled by different systems in the brain. Opioids within very small regions of the brain seem to induce the 'liking' response; elsewhere in the brain, opioids only produce 'wanting'. We don't know how or why yet. This sort of research constrains a general principle, but doesn't really hint toward one.
In short, there's plenty of research around the topic, but it's focused exclusively on humans/mammals/vertebrates: our evolved adaptations, our emotional systems, and our architectural quirks. Nothing on general or universal principles that would address any of (1)-(7). There is interesting information-theoretic / patternist work being done, but it's highly concentrated around consciousness research.
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Bottom line: there seems to be a critically important general principle as to what makes certain arrangements of particles innately preferable to others, and we don't know what it is. Exciting!
It does, and thank you for the reply.
How should we define "pleasure"? -- A difficult question. As you mention, it is a cloud of concepts, not a single one. It's even more difficult because there appears to be precious little driving the standardization of the word-- e.g., if I use the word 'chair' differently than others, it's obvious, people will correct me, and our usages will converge. If I use the word 'pleasure' differently than others, that won't be as obvious because it's a subjective experience, and there'll be much less convergence toward a common usage.
But I'd say that in practice, these problems tend to work themselves out, at least enough for my purposes. E.g., if I say "think of pure, unadulterated agony" to a room of 10000 people, I think the vast majority would arrive at fairly similar thoughts. Likewise, if I asked 10000 people to think of "pure, unadulterated bliss… the happiest moment in your life", I think most would arrive at thoughts which share certain attributes, and none (<.01%) would invert answers to these two questions.
I find this "we know it when we see it" definitional approach completely philosophically unsatisfying, but it seems to work well enough for my purposes, which is to find mathematical commonalities across brain-states people identify as 'pleasurable', and different mathematical commonalities across brain-states people identify as 'painful'.
I see what you mean by "the meaning of a word is hardly ever accurately given by any necessary-and-sufficient conditions that can be stated explicitly in a reasonable amount of space, because that just isn't the way human minds work." On the other hand, all words are imperfect and we need to talk about this somehow. How about this: (1) what are the characteristic mathematics of (i.e., found disproportionally in) self-identified pleasurable brain states?
"what are the characteristic mathematics of (i.e., found disproportionally in) self-identified pleasurable brain states?"
Certain areas of the brain get more active and certain hormones get into the bloodstream. How does this help you out?