If hunger is a perception, then “we eat not because we’re hungry, but rather because we perceive we’re hungry” makes much less sense. Animals generally don’t have metacognition, yet they eat, so eating doesn’t require perceiving perception. It’s not that meta.
What do you mean by “when we eat we regulate perception”? Are you saying that the drive to eat comes from a desire to decrease hunger, where “decrease” is regulation and “hunger” is a perception?
But isn’t the gauge itself a measurement which doesn’t perfectly correspond to that which it measures? I’m not seeing a distinction here.
Here’s my understanding of your post: “the map is not the territory, and we always act to bring about a change in our map; changes in the territory are an instrumental subgoal or an irrelevant side effect.” I don’t think this is true. Doesn’t that predict that humans would like wireheading, or “happy boxes” (virtual simulations that are more pleasant than reality)?
(You could respond that “we don’t want our map to include a wireheaded self.” I’ll try to find a post I’ve read that argues against this kind of argument.)
If hunger is a perception, then “we eat not because we’re hungry, but rather because we perceive we’re hungry” makes much less sense. Animals generally don’t have metacognition, yet they eat, so eating doesn’t require perceiving perception. It’s not that meta.
What do you mean by “when we eat we regulate perception”? Are you saying that the drive to eat comes from a desire to decrease hunger, where “decrease” is regulation and “hunger” is a perception?
I think most people think of hunger like a gas gauge on the car — eating because the gas gauge is on “Empty” to fill it out.
But, actually, we’re eating to change our perception — changing from the “I perceive myself to be hungry” to that not being the case any more.
The problem is that that might not map to actual nutritional needs, desired life/lifestyle, biochemistry, body composition, etc etc.
But isn’t the gauge itself a measurement which doesn’t perfectly correspond to that which it measures? I’m not seeing a distinction here.
Here’s my understanding of your post: “the map is not the territory, and we always act to bring about a change in our map; changes in the territory are an instrumental subgoal or an irrelevant side effect.” I don’t think this is true. Doesn’t that predict that humans would like wireheading, or “happy boxes” (virtual simulations that are more pleasant than reality)?
(You could respond that “we don’t want our map to include a wireheaded self.” I’ll try to find a post I’ve read that argues against this kind of argument.)