Categoría: Understanding Sentience
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How does the world view of a believer in physicalism differ from one of idealism?
Physicalism is the view that no “element of reality” (Einstein) is missing from the mathematical equations of physics – more strictly, tomorrow’s physics beyond the Standard Model plus GR. Idealism is the view that reality is experiential. Most physicalists aren’t idealists, and most idealists aren’t physicalists, but a small minority of researchers are both idealists and physicalists.…
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Conceptualizing suffering and pain
Pain can be described in neurological terms but cognitive awareness, interpretation, behavioral dispositions, as well as cultural and educational factors have a decisive influence on pain perception. Suffering is proposed to be defined as an unpleasant or even anguishing experience, severely affecting a person at a psychophysical and existential level. Pain and suffering are considered…
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The emotional need of a «scenario completion» and the difference between a cook and a chef
The need of a «scenario completion» «Fascinating concept that I came across in military/police psychology dealing with the unique challenges people face in situations of extreme stress/danger: scenario completion. Take the normal pattern completion that people do and put fear blinders on them so they only perceive one possible outcome and they mechanically go through…
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David Cooper’s argument showing sentience to be impossible.
David Cooper’s argument showing sentience to be impossible. http://magicschoolbook.com/consciousness
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Ideology of Reproduction versus Non-Suffering and conservatism vs progressivism
«While every sensitive being fundamentally wishes to avoid suffering and experience happiness, curiously, human societies have almost never made non-suffering and happiness their founding values. Why? The ideology of reproduction has existed for 100,000 years, while the belief that the spirit survives the death of the body appears. We must reproduce so that a progeny…
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What does «more suffering than happiness» means?
In Magnus Vinding‘s [1] words [2]: I think there is a problem with underspecified [in expressions] like “more suffering than happiness” […] For example, talking about “whether suffering or enjoyment is more common” (in this piece [3]) sounds rather descriptive, whereas saying that, or whether, “suffering predominates” (ibid.) will often have evaluative and/or moral connotations.…
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The case of Dax Cowart
«I was burned so severely and in so much pain that I did not want to live even in the early moments following the explosion. A man who heard my shouts for help came running down the road, I asked him for a gun. He said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Can’t you see I am a…
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How to address the problem of sentience?
In the field of philosophical ideas we can not (easily) make predictions, but we can prove and demand that philosophical hypotheses should have: Regarding the proposed subject: Clarity Internal coherence Compatibility with the evidence (observations, experiences) Explanatory capacity Parsimony, in the sense of leaving out accessory or arbitrary elements Regarding the author, the creation process,…
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Asymmetries and compensations between pleasure and pain
There are two very related questions: “Is there a symmetry between suffering and enjoyment?” and “Can suffering be compensated with enjoyment?” Investigating the way in which we respond to these questions is very relevant, since we may have biases or blindness that are encouraging to make bad decisions, such as the survivorship bias. By better understanding…