Ideally, one would also want to find a volunteer with a typical faculty of love, to try the same spray and compare effects.

If there's anyone who has tried oxytocin, I'd be interested in an account of the experience. The OP moved me to obtain some, but at a dose of 24 IUs I experienced no effect.

What is there to like about this heaven-posting?

Inspiration. “Live this way, not the other way.” What is there to like about a beautiful picture? Is it the artist’s job to do more than create it?

What was your response to the hell posting? It too has nothing actionable, except the implicit “don’t live that way”.

The thermostat acts in exactly the same way as you do. I is possibly even already conscious (I had completely forgotten this was an established debate and its absolutely not a crux for me). You are much more complex that a thermostat.

I don't think there is any possibility of a thermostat being conscious. The linked article makes the common error of arguing that wherever there is consciousness we see some phenomenon X, therefore wherever there is X there is consciousness, and if there doesn't seem to be any, htere muste be consciousness "in a sense".

The fact that you can consciously implement the control algorithm does not tell us anything about your cognition

Of course. The thermostat controls temperature without being conscious; I can by my own conscious actions also choose to perform the thermostat's role.

Anyway, all this began with my objecting to "agents" performing time travel, and arguing that whether an unconscious thermostat or a conscious entity such as myself controls the temperature, no time travel is involved. Neither do I achieve a goal merely by predicting that it will be achieved, but by acting to achieve it. Are we disagreeing about anything at this point?

In Soviet Russia sickbed, defect button hammers you.

It would be suspicious if I was right about everything but I don't think I am.

That is something we can agree on. :)

(Also a reply to your parallel comment.)

If we are to imagine the thermostat conscious, that we surely cannot limit that consciousness to only the perception and the reference, but also allow it to see, intend, and perform its own actions. It is not inexorably being pulled, but itself pushing (by turning the heat on and off) towards its goal.

Only if we want to commit ourselves to a homunculus theory of consciousness and a libertarian theory of free will.

You introduced the homunculus by imagining the thermostat conscious. I responded by pointing out that if it's going to be aware of its perception and reference, there is no reason to exclude the rest of the show.

But of course the thermostat is not conscious.

I am. When I act as the thermostat, I am perceiving the temperature of the room, and the temperature I want it to be, and I decide and act to turn the heat on or off accordingly. There is no homunculus here, nor "libertarian free will", whatever that is, just a description of my conscious experience and actions. To dismiss this as a homunculus theory is to dismiss the very idea of consciousness.

And some people do that. Do you? They assert that there is no such thing as consciousness, or a mind, or subjective experience. These are not even illusions, for that would imply an experiencer of the illusion, and there is no experience. For such people, all talk of these things is simply a mistake. If you are one of these people, then I don't think the conversation can proceed any further. From my point of view you would be a blind man denying the existence and even the idea of sight.

Or perhaps you grant consciousness the ability to observe, but not to do? In imagination you grant the thermostat the ability to perceive, but not to do, supposing that the latter would require the nonexistent magic called "libertarian free will". But epiphenomenal consciousness is as incoherent a notion as p-zombies. How can a thing exist that has no effect on any physical object, yet we talk about it (which is a physical action)?

I'm just guessing at your views here.

So does the delta between goal and perception cause the action directly?

For the thermostat (assuming the bimetallic strip type), the reference is the position of a pair of contacts either side of the strip, the temperature causes the curvature of the strip, which makes or breaks the contacts, which turns the heating on or off. This is all physically well understood. There is nothing problematic here.

For me acting as the thermostat, I perceive the delta, and act accordingly. I don't see anything problematic here either. The sage is not above causation, nor subject to causation, but one with causation. As are we all, whether we are sages or not.

A postscript on the Hard Problem.

In the background there is the Hard Problem of Consciousness, which no-one has a solution for, nor has even yet imagined what a solution could possibly look like. But all too often people respond to this enigma by arguing, only magic could cross the divide, magic does not exist, therefore consciousness does not exist. But the limits of what I understand are not the limits of the world.

And you can get the good parts

The good parts? Are you throwing Good out the front door, only to find it still in the house, without even needing to climb back through the window?

All of this is to say that to successfully do something deliberately, your goal must have the property that when used as a reference your perceptions will actually converge there (stability).

For all that people talk of agents and agentiness, their conceptions are often curiously devoid of agency, with "agents" merely predicting outcomes and (to them) magically finding themselves converging there, unaware that they are taking any actions to steer the future where they want it to go. But what brings the perception towards the goal is not the goal, but the way that the actions depend on the difference.

From the point of view of the thermostat, the set temperature is its destiny to which it is inexorably being pulled. In other words it is the only goal it can possibly hope to pursue.

If we are to imagine the thermostat conscious, that we surely cannot limit that consciousness to only the perception and the reference, but also allow it to see, intend, and perform its own actions. It is not inexorably being pulled, but itself pushing (by turning the heat on and off) towards its goal.

Some of the heaters in my house do not have thermostats, in which case I'm the thermostat. I turn the heater on when I find the room too cold and turn it off when it's too warm. This is exactly what a thermostat would be doing, except that it can't think about it.

I don't understand this example. If someone throws a ball to me, I can try to catch it, try to dodge it, let it go whizzing over my head, and so on, and I will have some idea of how things will develop depending on my choices, but you seem to be adding an unnecessary extra level onto this that I don't follow.

But I think this belief is rather suspicious. It would be a bit too convenient if it turned out correct. It would be a surprise if humans really were nearly all of what mattered, but no surprise at all if humans falsely believed we were nearly all of what mattered.

This is Proving Too Much. Pointing the same argument in a different direction:

You probably believe your beliefs are right. After all, they couldn't otherwise be your beliefs. But who is telling you to believe these things? You are! Isn't that suspiciously convenient? That you believe just the things that you tell yourself to believe? What about all the people who happen to believe different things? Well, of course they're wrong, because you're right, because you tell yourself so. Isn't there something a little bit wrong here? Something that you will try not to see because it would totally destroy your whole worldview to admit it? List all your beliefs and you're probably the only sentient being in all of creation that believes exactly those things, it only takes a few tens of bits to narrow down to just you. How likely is it that you, out of billions of people and trillions of sentient beings, are the only one who is right about everything? But that is what you are claiming with your beliefs. If you did not cling desperately onto the illusion of your rightness, you would have to admit that among all those trillions you are nothing, that you are only a jot of scum on the ocean of sentience.