Very few of us would implement the pain at it’s natural strength—the warning that can not be ignored—out of self preservation.
I would—or at least I would make sure I didn’t compromise my ability to act adaptively in response to pain. The easiest way to do that is to make sure that pain really hurts.
Of course there are some cases where we know better than our bodies do—e.g. dental anaesthesia.
Are you sure? If you still assign dis-utility of it’s own to the pain, you’ll be trading off this dis-utility for the dis-utility of survival impairment in a way that external agent which is only concerned with survival (or reproduction) would not.
Pain is a messenger. I am interested in its messages—and would normally prefer it if they were not muffled or distorted. We can see what congenital analgesia is like. It doesn’t look too good.
You’re excluding the middle. My argument is that, as long as you see pain as having any dis-utility of it’s own, if you are utility-maximizing you will adjust the sense of pain to be less strong than outside agent which sees pain as not having any dis-utility of it’s own, but merely as a strategic value for improving fitness of some kind.
I would—or at least I would make sure I didn’t compromise my ability to act adaptively in response to pain. The easiest way to do that is to make sure that pain really hurts.
Of course there are some cases where we know better than our bodies do—e.g. dental anaesthesia.
Are you sure? If you still assign dis-utility of it’s own to the pain, you’ll be trading off this dis-utility for the dis-utility of survival impairment in a way that external agent which is only concerned with survival (or reproduction) would not.
Pain is a messenger. I am interested in its messages—and would normally prefer it if they were not muffled or distorted. We can see what congenital analgesia is like. It doesn’t look too good.
You’re excluding the middle. My argument is that, as long as you see pain as having any dis-utility of it’s own, if you are utility-maximizing you will adjust the sense of pain to be less strong than outside agent which sees pain as not having any dis-utility of it’s own, but merely as a strategic value for improving fitness of some kind.
So: it’s important not to do that. If you value pain avoidance intrinisically, that way lies wireheading.