Well, the utility as in ‘utility function’ of an utility maximizing agent, is something that’s calculated in predicted future state. The pain is only calculated in the now. That’s a subtle distinction.
I think this lobotomy example (provided that subject knows what lobotomy is and what brain is and thus doesn’t want lobotomy) clarifies why I don’t think pain is working quite like an utility function’s output. The fear does work like proper utility function’s output. When you fear something you also don’t want to get rid of that fear (with some exceptions in the people who basically don’t fear correctly). And fear is all about future state.
Well, the utility as in ‘utility function’ of an utility maximizing agent, is something that’s calculated in predicted future state. The pain is only calculated in the now. That’s a subtle distinction.
It’s better to think of future utility being an extrapolation of current utility—and current utility being basically the same thing as the position of the pleasure-pain axis. Otherwise there is a danger of pointlessly duplicating concepts.
It is the cause of lots of problems to distinguish too much between utility and pleasure. The pleasure-pain axis is nature’s attempt to engineer a utility-based system. It did a pretty good job.
Of course, you should not take “pain” too literally—in the case of humans. Humans have modulations on pain that feed into their decision circuitry—but the result is still eventually collapsed down into one dimension—like a utility value.
It’s better to think of future utility being an extrapolation of current utility—and current utility being basically the same thing as the position of the pleasure-pain axis. Otherwise there is a danger of pointlessly duplicating concepts.
The danger here is in inventing terminology that is at odds with normally used terminology, resulting in confusion when reading texts written in standard terminology. I would rather describe human behaviour as ‘learning agent’ as per Russell & Norvig 2003 . where the pain is part of ‘critic’. You can see a diagram on wikipedia:
Ultimately, the overly broad definitions become useless.
We also have a bit of ‘reflex agent’ where pain makes you flinch away or flail around or faint (though i’d dare a guess that most people don’t faint even when pain has saturated and can’t increase any further).
Well, the utility as in ‘utility function’ of an utility maximizing agent, is something that’s calculated in predicted future state. The pain is only calculated in the now. That’s a subtle distinction.
I think this lobotomy example (provided that subject knows what lobotomy is and what brain is and thus doesn’t want lobotomy) clarifies why I don’t think pain is working quite like an utility function’s output. The fear does work like proper utility function’s output. When you fear something you also don’t want to get rid of that fear (with some exceptions in the people who basically don’t fear correctly). And fear is all about future state.
It’s better to think of future utility being an extrapolation of current utility—and current utility being basically the same thing as the position of the pleasure-pain axis. Otherwise there is a danger of pointlessly duplicating concepts.
It is the cause of lots of problems to distinguish too much between utility and pleasure. The pleasure-pain axis is nature’s attempt to engineer a utility-based system. It did a pretty good job.
Of course, you should not take “pain” too literally—in the case of humans. Humans have modulations on pain that feed into their decision circuitry—but the result is still eventually collapsed down into one dimension—like a utility value.
The danger here is in inventing terminology that is at odds with normally used terminology, resulting in confusion when reading texts written in standard terminology. I would rather describe human behaviour as ‘learning agent’ as per Russell & Norvig 2003 . where the pain is part of ‘critic’. You can see a diagram on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_agent
Ultimately, the overly broad definitions become useless.
We also have a bit of ‘reflex agent’ where pain makes you flinch away or flail around or faint (though i’d dare a guess that most people don’t faint even when pain has saturated and can’t increase any further).