True enough, but think about this. We have warning systems on our computers to let us know when they get a virus - so we don't have to feel the effect of the virus to know its there - and we know that we want to preserve the computer, so we act on it without feeling the "pain" of the computer. But, we actually do start to associate our own feelings with this knowledge - annoyance, even grief if it destroys the computer. So the affective, feeling-oriented component of knowledge and action emerges, even if it is seemingly unnecessary.

Wait, wait, wait. Yes, but what's the point of this? Sure, I'm pissed as hell if I have to reformat because my computer's dyin' of backdoor virus type x9-yadda-yadda. Are you trying to say we'd be pissed as hell if ameliorating the source of emotional pain for a person ended up killing or crippling them? I think I'm at a loss here. In other words:

Lol, I dunno what you gettin' at, Willis.

Which is a shame, because I understood everything up to the Emotional Anti-virus thingie -- which I think we already have, and it be called Introspection v1.0, Gold version.

I believe what he means is that if we know we have some kind of flesh eating tiny mole rat in our stomach, even if we don't necessarily feel the mole rat eating us, we would want it out because of an emotional connection to our body or because we value the apparent condition of our bodies.

Or something.

Basically. And if you can't get rid of the feelings you associate with something, why not use them as the alert system to know when your body is in danger? And then if you do, that could become what we know as pain. So even if neurochemically it's registering as a form of pleasure, because it puts you in danger, you may re-adapt and interpret it as pain.

But wouldn't you need inevitable proof, or something close to inevitable proof, that this hurts for you to actually realize it hurts? Or that it's not good?

I apologize, but I'm finding it hard to get into the discussion so my stuff might be a bit broken :P

Apologies for reviving a three-day-old thread, but Logic might be getting onto the right idea with the right idea, but too vaguely to lend enough plausibility to what he's saying. ([solipsism That's how I feel at least, AND I KNOW YOU'RE ALL JUST PART OF MY REALITY. /solipsism.]) Basically, humans have a great capacity for observational learning (which is a trait we share with our primate relatives; yo, chimp!), and the first time we see:

"Oh, hey, Bob's having a good time!

"Yup! Man, this flesh eating Streptococcus is absolutely flabbergastingly fabulous!"

"You don't look so great. That's wonderful!"

"Hrrrrk. Dead."

We might pick up on the hint because, you know, being dead will still kinda carrying the stigma it always had for us (assuming whatever proposed procedure doesn't rewrite the human instinct of self-preservation, the basic building block of life.)

"Hey, Tim!"

"Hey! Just enjoying my flesh eating streptococcus!"

"...shouldn't you go to the doctor's?"

"Why? Feels fine-a-diddly-dandy!"

"You could die."

"Oh, that's not nearly as joyous as living!"

I don't have much time right now but here's an example to make one of my points less vague, the point that we have a system of homeostasis regulating the experience of our neurochemistry.

Drugs like cocaine increase the presence of neurotransmitters like dopamine (which causes feelings of pleasure) in the synapse (the space between neurons) by blocking their presynaptic reuptake (prevents them from being absorbed by the neuron that released them - a normal regulatory mechanism). So when someone repeatedly uses the drug, the brain gets used to having more neurotransmitters available in the synapse and starts to downregulate their production in order to maintain neuronal, and therefore experiential, homeostasis. The brain is used to having more neurotransmitters in the synapse because it can't reuptake them, so it starts to produces less in the first place. That's why addicts have to take more and more of the drug to get the exact same effect. The brain tries to re-engineer the same baseline, "normal" experience of consciousness (as measured by neurotransmitter transmission) in the presence of the drug that existed before the use of the drug.

That's why I'm saying that paradise engineering, or the hedonistic imperative, can't work, if our current neuroscience is correct, because the brain will simply interpret states of neurochemically induced pleasure as the new baseline "normal" - just like the drug addict - which won't be experienced as pleasure at all.

Later I'll try to clarify my other point, that if it did work, it would be counterproductive.

OK now it's certainly possible to imagine a technological enhancement that could circumvent this neuronal homeostasis, such that the brain does not diminish its production of neurotransmitters in response their engineered, potentiated synaptic presence.

But as as you noted ABedlamSun, we aren't just neurochemistry in a vacuum, we learn observationally. So what I'm saying is that yes, we can try to do away with pain by augmenting neuronal processes, but I think it's functional equivalent would re-emerge as a way to keep us out of danger. For example, if you can't feel physical pain, you can't sense that you should take your hand off of a hot stove, but you can deduce that you should, based on logical reasoning. This process of deduction might adaptively become so closely allied to the action of placing your hand on the stove that it happens simultaneous with the action, just as pain. Thus, if the property of associating damage with aversion is intrinsic to humanity (cannot be done away with, if you try, it will re-emerge), why waste time and effort trying to get rid of it in the first place?

But now actually I'm thinking Odlov is right, that technology might be able to mimic this alert system in a way that we don't have to feel it, but that would similarly incentivize taking responsive action. And Odlov said the article is more about emotional pain anyway (alas I still haven't read through it). So I think what I was trying to argue is that the value of emotional pain (or any pain) is at least partially rooted in it being a felt experience, and if we do away with this, we might be missing out on something. That something, I was arguing, is the immediacy of the experience of pain. And maybe Pearce is not talking about doing away with the immediacy of feeling, but changing our incentives and conditioning mechanisms to be solely pleasure based, instead of including both pleasure and pain. Maybe this could work. What do you think?