Sure, but there’s a question about how much control “you” have. For example, say I’m a guy who really likes scary movies, and I really liked Alien the first 7 times I watched it, but it’s been getting less scary each time I watch it. I really want it to feel super-scary again the 8th time I watch it. But that’s not under my control.
I think there’s kinda a “I should be scared right now” “head” on the world-model and it has gradually learned over the previous 7 viewings that none of the scenes depicted in Aliens are actually threatening to me. I have some conscious control over e.g. what to attend to / think about while watching, whether to take drugs first, etc., and those will have some effect over how scared I feel, but this is a case where I’m mostly powerless, I think.
I think in the absence of “more active intervention” like your last paragraph, something similar would happen with “feeling good about a situation which will lead to another person feeling reward”. Even if I terminally value that, it’s not clear that there would be anything I could do about it.
But I think the lazy, shared representations remain the default
I dunno, it’s not obvious to me that prosocial concern for others is “default” while status competition and outgroup-hatred and jealousy and flirting and all those other things are “non-default”.
Hmm, well really, maybe it’s not worth arguing about. We need to explain these antisocial behaviors one way or the other. My hunch is that when we can explain status competition, we’ll naturally see that those same mechanisms, whatever they are (“more active interventions” as in your last paragraph) are probably also involved in prosocial empathetic concern.
Well anyway, let’s explain status drive and then we can cross that bridge when we get to it. :)
Sure, but there’s a question about how much control “you” have. For example, say I’m a guy who really likes scary movies, and I really liked Alien the first 7 times I watched it, but it’s been getting less scary each time I watch it. I really want it to feel super-scary again the 8th time I watch it. But that’s not under my control.
I think there’s kinda a “I should be scared right now” “head” on the world-model and it has gradually learned over the previous 7 viewings that none of the scenes depicted in Aliens are actually threatening to me. I have some conscious control over e.g. what to attend to / think about while watching, whether to take drugs first, etc., and those will have some effect over how scared I feel, but this is a case where I’m mostly powerless, I think.
I think in the absence of “more active intervention” like your last paragraph, something similar would happen with “feeling good about a situation which will lead to another person feeling reward”. Even if I terminally value that, it’s not clear that there would be anything I could do about it.
I dunno, it’s not obvious to me that prosocial concern for others is “default” while status competition and outgroup-hatred and jealousy and flirting and all those other things are “non-default”.
Hmm, well really, maybe it’s not worth arguing about. We need to explain these antisocial behaviors one way or the other. My hunch is that when we can explain status competition, we’ll naturally see that those same mechanisms, whatever they are (“more active interventions” as in your last paragraph) are probably also involved in prosocial empathetic concern.
Well anyway, let’s explain status drive and then we can cross that bridge when we get to it. :)