This seems like a pretty good reason to reject a simple proportion account
To be clear, I also reject the simple proportion account. For that matter, I reject any simple account. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from thinking about differences in the intensity of valenced experience, it’s that brains are really, really complicated and messy. Perhaps that’s the reason I’m less moved by the type of thought experiments you’ve been offering in this thread. Thought experiments, by their nature, abstract away a lot of detail. But because the neurological mechanisms that govern valenced experience are so complex and so poorly understood, it’s hardly ever clear to me which details can be safely ignored. Fortunately, our tools for studying the brain are improving every year. I’m tentatively confident that the next couple decades will bring a fairly dramatic improvement in our neuroscientific understanding of conscious experience.
Still, I would conclude from my thought experiments that proportion can’t matter at all in a simple way (i.e. all else equal, and controlling for number of firing neurons), even as a small part of the picture, while number still plausibly could in a simple way (all else equal, and controlling for proportion of firing neurons), at least as a small part of the picture. All else equal, it seems number matters, but proportion does not. But ya, this might be close to useless to know now, since all else is so far from equal in practice. Maybe evolution “renormalizes” intensity when more neurons are added. Or something else we haven’t even imagined yet.
To be clear, I also reject the simple proportion account. For that matter, I reject any simple account. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from thinking about differences in the intensity of valenced experience, it’s that brains are really, really complicated and messy. Perhaps that’s the reason I’m less moved by the type of thought experiments you’ve been offering in this thread. Thought experiments, by their nature, abstract away a lot of detail. But because the neurological mechanisms that govern valenced experience are so complex and so poorly understood, it’s hardly ever clear to me which details can be safely ignored. Fortunately, our tools for studying the brain are improving every year. I’m tentatively confident that the next couple decades will bring a fairly dramatic improvement in our neuroscientific understanding of conscious experience.
Fair point. I agree.
Still, I would conclude from my thought experiments that proportion can’t matter at all in a simple way (i.e. all else equal, and controlling for number of firing neurons), even as a small part of the picture, while number still plausibly could in a simple way (all else equal, and controlling for proportion of firing neurons), at least as a small part of the picture. All else equal, it seems number matters, but proportion does not. But ya, this might be close to useless to know now, since all else is so far from equal in practice. Maybe evolution “renormalizes” intensity when more neurons are added. Or something else we haven’t even imagined yet.