# Why are we alive? **URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200 **Category:** Great Debates **Created:** [July 25, 2009, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200 "2009-07-25T04:36:02Z") **Posts on this page:** 1 **Showing post:** 101
### Author: ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2) #### Post date: [August 6, 2009, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/101 "2009-08-06T18:46:15Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > I of course meant _internal_ rewards, that is, “good” emotions. > I’m well aware of your position. Then why did you ask a question you already knew the answer to? > [@Mijin](#): > > Didn’t find any cites eh? All the sites on cognitive neurology said that emotion _influences_ behaviour but does not _dictate_ it, didn’t they? > > Well, sure, I can provide a cite on neurochemistry. However, I obviously don’t agree with the absurd straw man you just invited in – that anything neurochemical has nothing to do with neural signalling. :rolleyes: > In fact, I’m going to add that paragraph to the list of **begbert2** classic quotes. I didn’t even look for cites, because your position was nonsense. You asserted as a fact that “‘emotion’ has a clear meaning in neurobiology and demonstrably it is not the case that it motivates our every action”. For this to have any _chance_ of being true, you’d have to have _decoded human cognition_. There is no other way to know that, while _some_ emotions may be caused by or may cause dopamine or whatever to emitted in measurable levels, that other emotional responses are not occurring amongst the electrical signals in the neurons, at a subconscious level within the decision-making process(es). And I kind of doubt that we _have_ cracked human cognition to that level, or we’d have seen it being simulated in computers by now. So yeah. I think that for all your vaunted claimed knowledge of neurobiology and cognition, that you are making vast overstatements about human knowledge on the subject to the level of making shit up to support/assert your position. So yeah, if it really IS a fact that “‘emotion’ has a clear meaning in neurobiology and demonstrably it is not the case that it motivates our every action”, then CITE. News articles on the sentient computer-simulation will be accepted. But please, do keep mindlessly repeating quotes. As many of them as you can fit in! I can’t be the only person who sees it as a spectacularly juvenile way to fill posts in leu of actual reasoned argument, and I can’t be the only person who has noticed that you haven’t yet managed to explain what’s so incomprehensible about the _first_ quote (well, incomprehensible to persons who aren’t _you_). So yeah. Keep waving that flag! It says more than I ever could about the kind of argument you are engaging in. > [@Mijin](#): > > :smack::smack::smack: > > You still haven’t actually responded to my argument here, so let me try again. > > You won’t allow for the fact that we “just are” motivated by things like curiosity and aggression. You keep asking _why_ we’re motivated in that way, that there must be some underlying motivation (e.g. sometimes we act out our curiosity because it will make us happy). > But it’s a turtles explanation because it requires as a given that we “just are” always motivated by happiness / reducing misery. > I can turn your argument around and ask _why_ are we motivated by happiness / reducing misery? This after you say you are “well aware” of my position. Look, smart guy. There are two dots here. “Motivations” and “actions”. You utterly fail to connect them. In order to be _able_ to connect them, it **MUST** be the case that there is something that directly triggers actual activity. That is, there must be _something_ that the brain “just is” responsive to as a motivator for action. Best I can tell, your model is to just take all the motivations and just throw them into a big pile on the brain’s doorstep, and say “we just act on those”, while refusing to state or theorize on _how_ the brain manages to decide which motivations matter the most to it, and while categorically _refusing_ my explanation (which we’ll note that, aside from the label of “happiness” on the normalized comparison metric, is logically _required_ to be true). As best I can tell, you are refusing my theory for no logical or rational reason whatsoever. Best I can tell, you just hate the idea that we’re “selfish” :rolleyes:, and so will reject any theory that may vaguely suggest that conclusion regardless of how obvious or necessarily true that theory may be. You ask, again, while ignoring my prior answers, why I won’t allow for the fact that we “just are” motivated by things like curiosity and aggression. The answer is obvious - because you’re failing to explain **which one wins**. Suppose you see something that you’re both curious about, _and_ wish to instantly destroy. You can’t both crush it immidiately _and_ take the time to study it - so which do you do? Which motivation wins? This is the part where you start handwaving like you’re trying to singlehandedly power a wind farm, and where I calmly point out that the emotional reaction we have to denying our curiousity and the emotional reaction we have to denying our aggression are (unlike the curiousity and aggression themselves), a normalized comparable measure which can be used to choose which motivation to deny based on which denial would bother us more. And _that_ is the point where you go apeshit at the idea that we could make a decision based on how much the outcomes bother us. And thus, here we are. > [@Mijin](#): > > It was a slip. > But I don’t know why you have such a problem with the world pleasure; it doesn’t imply euphoria (you can have a “pleasant commute” for example), and actually seems less loaded to me than “happiness”. But fine. Okay, it was a slip, accepted. I’m sensitive because when I see that from you here I susect a possible deliberate attempt to slip in a backdoor to punk my response with later. Sorry, but your agrument style here hasn’t exactly inspired confidence or trust. > [@Mijin](#): > > Well, it’s complicated. Current thinking is that there are at least 3 decision-making mechanisms in the brain; the Visceral, Behavioural and Reflective. And these are not abstract; they have separate loci in the brain. > > The Behavioural layer is the only layer affected at all by emotions, and it is not dictated by them. And this layer is not at the highest level. If any layer can be considered to be “in charge”, it would be the Reflective. Depends on how you define “in charge”, I suppose. (And how you define “emotions” - as you _clearly_ know, since you are ‘well aware’ of my argument, the emotional reaction that drives the final decision-making must of logical necessity be a normalized continuum, to enable it to be possible to make comparisons of it. So by the time we get to this level, all the curiosity and aggression and whatnot have been streamlined into just the linear emotion reacion to satisfying or denying them.) But regardless, all you have done is turn one question into four - how do each of the Visceral, Behavioural and Reflective decision-making mechanisms normalize and compare conflicting motivations, and how do those three results get merged into one final action. And as for the answers to those four questions - well, at least the breeze from all this handwaving is refreshing. > [@Mijin](#): > > What data? Personal observation. People seem to tend not to do things that the very idea of makes them unhappy. And they seem to tend to choose amongst varying motivations based on emotional responses to expected outcomes. Admittedly, your theory of how conflicts between motivations are resolved may explain these observations just as well. Except that you don’t seem to have any such theory. > [@Mijin](#): > > This is the typical kind of flip-flopping that creeps into the “there’s no such thing as a selfless act” debate. > > One minute you’re using words like happiness. The next minute you’re saying that you just mean the “best” option, and that any decision-making machine can be said to be seeking happiness, even, say, a chess computer. > > Well, those are two different things. Of course any decision-making system must ultimately make decisions so it must consider some options better than others. I’ve already said that many times. > > But to the hypothesis that that criteria is about inducing or preventing _a feeling_, a psychological state, whether now or in the future, this is simply not the case. I’m not flip-flopping at all, of course. The “best” option is the one that is assessed in the moment of decision as having the most positive/least negative value on the normalized comparison metric I’m discussing here. In a chess computer, this normalized comparison metric is probably not called “happiness”. Even in humans, calling it “the happiness/misery continuum”, as I have been doing, is something of a word overload, because as you have irrelevently noted “happiness” (well, “pleasure”) can be used to refer to a specific emotional state that isn’t even on a continuum (and thus is clearly not what I’m talking about). However as best I can tell human behavoior demonstrates that this normalized comparison metric in humans does correlate with emotional response, specifically positive and negative reactions to things. And it’s kind of bizarre that anyone would think that a discussion of normalized comparitive measures lines up in _any_ meaningful way with the pejoritave term “selfish”. But clearly you’re still hanging on to that…because as best I can tell that negative emotional reaction you’re having to accepting the “selfish” label is the only reason you’re disagreeing with me at all. > [@Mijin](#): > > If I punch some guy, it’s not to feel good: I’ll probably feel “shaken up” for quite some time afterwards. But yeah, for whatever conscious reason at the time, I obviously consider it a good idea. Whoops, you forgot to say why you DID punch the guy. Probably because I could trivially reduce that to it being an outcome that is percieved at the moment of action as more emotionally satisfying overall than refraining from punching him would be. Presuming you actually were “well aware” of what my argument was, you’d realize that for a counterexample to work, you’d need to demonstrate that the _actual_ causes of an event could not possibly be traced to any emotional reaction of any kind. Gesturing vaguely to the fact that not all choices result in PLEASURE is obviously no problem for _my_ position. > [@Mijin](#): > > I know, it’s odd isn’t it? And I’m not just an AI-geek; I’m now persuing a career in neuroimaging, and studying the brain and cognition. > So…why can’t I agree with your theory? It’s a mystery… No, it’s pretty obvious - you can’t stand the thought that the word “selfish” could come within fifty miles of you. So in rejection of that, you compromise your argument, your knowledge, your position, your presentation of yourself… > [@Mijin](#): > > Well, that’s your basic assertion, and it’s incorrect. Again, where’s that cite? Observable human behavior, and the fact that a normalized comparative measure is a _logical necessity_. Where’s your counterargument? Where’s your alternate theory? > [@Mijin](#): > > So again, you’ve refused to answer the question. Probably because the prediction of your own theory seems absurd even to you. Nope. I’m just trying to avoid getting my foot stuck in a wordplay beartrap. Not that you would **ever** argue dishonestly… But seriously. If after your cognition has considered the way you would emotionally react to all the availably actions (based on your preferences, goals, tastes, knowledge, robotic implants, current mood, etc), if it has concluded that killing your kid is the avenue action that inspires the most positive emotional response, then you’ll kill your kid. Totally. Yes. You will. Period. > [@Mijin](#): > > But fine, I can answer it. Even with an arbitrary amount of pleasure for harming babies, a person will not necessarily become a killer. Such a decision would be made at a conscious level and involve conscious reasoning. Such reasoning is (obviously) not entirely motivated by happiness, so even if it were clear that the happiness of killing would far outweigh any feelings of regret, there is no reason to assume a person would kill. Assert, assert, assert, handwave, handwave, handwave. If not based on emotional reactions, then _what in the name of the FSM’s left meatball **does** _ make a person decide to kill? Or to drive to the supermarket? Or do anything? You can shout “No! No! No!” like a petulant child all day, but until you can come up with a better idea _or_ show why my idea is wrong (besides baselessly shouting “absurd” and “obviously”, that is), then there is no rational reason to care that you have a hard time accepting reality. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200)._