Reinforcement learning offers another perspective on this issue. It pictures values as based on rewards - which are usually based on chemical concentrations in the nervous system. Food, warmth and orgasms are rewarding, while pain, irritation and suffering are disvalued. It is possible to hack into the reward system using electrodes and …
Reinforcement learning offers another perspective on this issue. It pictures values as based on rewards - which are usually based on chemical concentrations in the nervous system. Food, warmth and orgasms are rewarding, while pain, irritation and suffering are disvalued. It is possible to hack into the reward system using electrodes and drugs. However, it is mostly out of reach to other cultural changes - unless they provide more or less food, warmth, orgasms, etc. So, for example the obesity epidemic is the result of more food, and barrier contraceptives are likely to result in more frequent orgasms. Many humans do profess to having many other "higher" values - but that's more like the PR department talking.
Reinforcement learning offers another perspective on this issue. It pictures values as based on rewards - which are usually based on chemical concentrations in the nervous system. Food, warmth and orgasms are rewarding, while pain, irritation and suffering are disvalued. It is possible to hack into the reward system using electrodes and drugs. However, it is mostly out of reach to other cultural changes - unless they provide more or less food, warmth, orgasms, etc. So, for example the obesity epidemic is the result of more food, and barrier contraceptives are likely to result in more frequent orgasms. Many humans do profess to having many other "higher" values - but that's more like the PR department talking.
There must be some force working in opposition to these three rewards, else everyone would be obese, overheated, nymphomaniacs.
Maybe mortality and legacy? Or the reward of “being remembered fondly.”
A culture that aspires to no higher values is not an adaptive culture that will succeed at anything.
Oh, there's plenty of "aspiring" going on. Along with distancing from the "base" desires and the denigration of those who promote them.