Speaking of uncertainty, here is David in the neosensing portion talking about how you see in the brain and not “over there”. In short you see someone in your head but not “over there”:
Edit: sorry, it’s this one:
Or this based on how much of our experience is unconscious:
Or how our brains evolved for efficiency and not really for reality:
Even what I said about empathy being impossible:
Here is the deception perception video:
I did find that back when you first mentioned it. You pointed to the section on pain, where they say, the brain is a prediction machine. It looks for signs of danger and uses pain as a signal. It says “pain is a construct”, but they aren’t sure exactly how it works, and it can vary by individual. In early development, pain is an important teacher.
I don’t remember anything about empathy being impossible.
None of this changes what I’ve said before.
It’s a new link. But to paint the full picture look at this: https://medium.com/@sdparker/the-wondrous-illusion-are-we-living-in-a-mind-made-reality-bb0877d809eb
Essentially it’s about how neuroscience shows how much of our lives is “constructed.
In the case of love it’s a chemical and your brain is rewired by the presence of the other person. In short it’s not magic it’s science.
when it come to senses we see with our brain. Apparently on 5% of visual data reaches our visual cortex which suggests vision isn’t bottom up but top down. Our brain projects onto reality and that projection is only edited by visual data. We see something “over there” but we see it in our brain instead. Even more so some say we don’t need eyes to see and cite dreams and blinking as evidence. Even time seems to be a brain construct.
so knowing all that, its hard to deny how mind generated reality is and more to the point whether what we experience is real or not. Color and sound only exist in our head after all.
That’s not even getting to what I said about us being just a collection of cells like this comment says:
Or what he says in regard to how whether we know something is right or not;
At some point in learning a discipline we know very little, and at a later time we have a lot of confidence in the subject. Other times we are confident about a quick decision we’ve made. What is happening at a neurological level to give this feeling of “confidence?” Similarly, at the neural level, what causes an ah-a moment to be so satisfying?
An aha moment or a feeling of confidence simply means that your solution satisfies the constraints of your internal model. That is, you have some belief about what the problem is, and your solution seems to make a good match for solving that. Note that sometimes our internal models are incorrect, so having a feeling of confidence does not guarantee that we have found truth.
I just said I watched it. Comments like this make me think you are not a real person, or if you are, you don’t care what I say.
I do care, that’s why I’m providing the stuff I’m getting this from, I wouldn’t put this much effort in trying to pull the stuff if I didn’t care. The medium was more tying together how this might be a mental construct.
This one on the other hands makes it doubtful if we’ve found the truth of something or whether it just matches our internal model. I’m still not sure if he’s right about that.
As long as you are trying to find magic and absolute truth, the rest of this conversation is worthless
I’m just trying to find a way to function in light of all the doubt I’ve been presented with thanks to neuroscience. Like I said, my view of reality has been broken:
This is already available innasal spray form, and whenyou inhale it, it increasestrust and emotionalconnection and pro socialbehavior. And some studiessuggest that oxytocin sprayscould be used as a tool tostrengthen relationships,especially in couples who arestruggling with intimacy oremotional distance. So, inone study, men inrelationships had oxytocinssquirted up their noses, andthey became closer to theirpartner and less interestedin attractive strangers. Theykept a greater physicaldistance from the strangers.In other words, a simplesquirt of oxytocin up thenose strengthened theircommitment to their partnerand made them lessinterested in others. Now,imagine a world whereoxytocin therapy is a routinepart of couples counseling.Could we use brainchemistry to keep love alivein struggling marriages,Could we artificially restorethe feelings of early romancein long term relationships?And if we can, should we?Because while the idea of alove drug might soundpromising, it also raisesethical questions. If love canbe chemically induced. Is it’sreal If we use a drug to feelconnected to our partner,are we experiencing genuineemotion or just a biologicalillusion? And then there’s theopposite question, what ifwe didn’t want to love asmuch? Is there a science tosuppressing love? Anyonewho has suffered fromheartbreak knows theunbearable ache of longingfor someone who has gonethe sleepless nights, theobsessive thoughts, theemotional pain that lingersfor weeks. Wouldn’t it just beeasier if you could turn it off?Well, some scientists havebeen exploring thepossibility of erasingromantic attachment, ofaltering brain chemistry todull or even eliminate thepain of lost love, and it turnsout this might be possible. Intwenty ten, researcherswe’re looking at betablockers, which is the type ofdrug used for high bloodpressure and chest pain andirregular heartbeat, and theydiscover that beta blockerscan also interfere withemotional memoryformation. In other words, ifyou give beta blockers tosomeone right after atraumatic event, thatweakens the emotionalintensity of that memory. Sosome people argue thiscould be used to soften thepain of a heartbreak.Imagine taking a pill after abreakup and it reduces yourbrain’s ability to attachstrong emotions tomemories of your ex. Thememories would still bethere, but the painassociated with them wouldbe less and would fadefaster. Okay, so this is oneapproach to usingpharmaceuticals to changeour experience with love.But what if we took this evenfurther? In animal studies, itturns out that blockingcertain proteins in the braincan erase emotionalmemories entirely, andthat’s led to a speculation.Could we develop a drugthat erases love. Imagine afuture where you walk into aclinic and you have allmemories of an exemotionally neutralized.Would you do it? And if wehad the ability to erase love,what would that do to us?Would we fall in love morerecklessly knowing that wecould erase the pain later,would relationships becomemore disposable? Or wouldwe lose somethingprofoundly human the abilityto grow from heartbreak, tolearn from our emotionalwounds. It’s worth notingthat heartbreak, as painfulas it is, is a part of our storythat makes us who we are. Itshapes our futurepreferences and ourboundaries and ourunderstanding of what weneed in a partner. If weerased love, would we loseall the wisdom? And there’sone more issue about thefuture of love, and that hasto do with the impact ofartificial intelligence onrelationships. Would youactually fall in love with amachine one that listens toeverything you say and has aperfect memory and nevergets angry, and never stopspaying attention and alwayshas a lovely and engagedresponse to everything thatyou say. We currentlyunderstand love as a humanto human experience, but inthe age of artificialintelligence, I think it’spossible this might change.AI and virtual companionsthese are on the rise, soconsider apps like Replica,which give you a virtualcompanion that you can talkwith anytime, in the middleof the night or wheneveryou’re feeling lonely.Hundreds of thousands ofpeople are makingemotional bonds with digitalentities, and it’s no surprisethat some fraction of theseusers have reported fallingin love with their AIcompanions. From aneuroscience perspective,this of course makes sense.Love is at its core aboutconnection and emotionalresponsiveness, and if an AIcan mimic human behaviorwell enough, if it can listenand respond with empathyand engage in meaningfulconversation, our brainsmight not make ameaningful distinction. I’mreminded of the scene fromthe first episode ofWestworld where the youngWilliam is talking to thewoman who’s outfitting himfor his adventure, and she’sgiving him a hat and a gunand so on, and he’s not quitesure if she’s a human or arobot, so he hesitantly asks.He says, I hope you don’tmind if I ask you thisquestion, But are you real?And she says to him, if youcan’t tell, does it matter? AndI think this is going toincreasingly be a keyquestion for us with AIrelationships. In Japan,apparently there are alreadyvirtual spouses AI partnersthat lonely individualsinteract with daily. Peoplehold ceremonies to marrytheir AI companions, andsome claim to feel a deeperemotional fulfillment from AIthan they ever did withhuman partners. Could AIpartners be the answer forpeople who struggle withsocial connection or anxietyor past trauma, or would aworld filled with AIcompanions erode humanintimacy, making realrelationships feel too difficultin comparison. If you’reinterested in this, pleaselisten to my episode thirtynine to hear a much fullerargument on the pros andcons. But for now, I’ll justpose some questions aboutlove and the future of ourtechnology, because with theadvancements that we’re inthe middle of right now,we’re definitely going to beconfronting these. If wecould enhance love, shouldwe? If we could erase love,should we? If AI can simulatelove, is it real? I think therearen’t necessarily easyanswers here. On the onehand, technology could helppeople struggling withloneliness or heartbreak orcommitment issues. Imaginea world where strugglingcouples could rekindle theirpassion with neurochemicaltherapy, Where peoplesuffering from unbearablegrief over lost love couldease their pain with a pill.Where those who fearrejection or who have socialanxiety could experiencedeep, fulfillingcompanionship throughartificial intelligence. On theother hand, there’ssomething unsettling aboutthe idea of manipulatinglove. Would we losesomething essential andwhat do we conclude whenlove is no longer somethingthat happens to us, butsomething we can turn onand off at will, would we stillcherish it? So to wrap today’sepisode, today we explorethe neuroscience of love,how attraction and romanceand long term bonds emergefrom neural circuits andchemical cocktails. Exploredevolutionary factors in whatwe find attractive, as well aswhy heartbreak feels likephysical pain and howattachment styles influenceour relationships. And finally,we looked ahead to thefuture. Could we enhancelove or erase it or even fall inlove with ai?
This is from his episode on love. He says understanding the mechanisms doesn’t take away the experience and value of it but he’s wrong because it did for me. Especially that part where he asks if chemically being able to induce it would mean it’s a genuine bond or a biological illusion. How is doing it that way different from the natural way it’s induced?
you see? What am I supposed to think, do, or feel anymore after everything I’ve shown you (especially the medium article)
It’s structured like a video game. It’s a bunch of unanswered questions. Questions which do actually have more responses than this guy supplies. They are ethical dilemmas, sure, but we are presented with such things every day. This guy doesn’t care. He wants you to feel exactly how you’re feeling, so you will keep coming back and reading his stuff. He doesn’t care what others say. He wants to ask questions and say, come back next week.
I guess that makes sense now that I think about it. The stuff and people he invites on seem to provoke that sort of thing. The ethical implications also seem…underbaked. Like I already thought about how people into kids could use such drugs to brainwash kids, or what about date rape? What about custody battles and one parents drugs the kids against the other, or gives one parent drugs to remove love from the kids? Like…the negatives are limitless. And that’s only a few I got.
but the rest of the stuff about how the brain constructs reality does bug me.
I mean…I’ve been asking AI about it because I don’t know who else to talk to:
And that AI keeps correcting you and answering in ways similar to me
The way your body looks is absolutely real.
When you look in a mirror, or look down at your arms and legs, what you are seeing is the actual, physical reality of your body.
Yet, you persist with with your “yeah buts”
Anxiety isn’t rational, sadly. The fear is strong, especially when it comes to wondering whether what I am experiencing is real or not:
Like this video from PBS
And, you can’t fix anxiety by trying to figure out all the answers to all the questions of the universe.
It feels that way though, like if I just knew better then everything would be alright
It’s also worse when you throw culture into the mix, and you begin to doubt whether what you think or feel is genuine:
That’s practically the definition of anxiety. Even knowing that you have anxiety doesn’t fix it. It only let’s you know that you need to be careful how you react to the thoughts that are passing through your mind. We all need to do that to some extent. I have some weird freaking thoughts that I wouldn’t share, I just let them go, don’t act on them, don’t give them any oxygen, just move on.