Very good points. QRI has a lot to say about all of these points, so I won’t repeat myself too much. I’ll address a couple points, but note there is a lot more to say that you can dig into in the provided links:
I think that pain is a particular manifestation of negative valence. It can trigger positive valence indirectly via e.g. energizing the system and then triggering neural annealing—nice waves of euphoria that are secondary and after the fact which are the reinforcing bits. Pain sans this secondary element is just unpleasant and bad, albeit perhaps not as bad as what you get when you mix both emotional and low level sensory negative valence together.
Importantly: mixed valence certainly complicates the picture, but above a certain intensity of sensation pain overwhelms whetever else is going on.
Shinzen Young’s concept of equanimity as not resisting sensations is a critical modifier on the valence of experience. That said, I’d say this modifies valence of the whole experience, and doesn’t necessarily take care of the low-level sensory negative valence. Stil, the bulk of a person’s valence under normal circumstances might be the result of how much they resist their current experience (even if pleasant otherwise). Extreme levels of equanimity, I’m convinced, can drastically lower the negative valence effects of pain.
This, however, has a limit. Even highly attained meditators (the “Buddha” included) would describe extreme pain as still a cause of suffering. Daniel Ingram, for example, can tolerate broken bones and all kinds of very intense painful sensations without them turning into suffering, so to speak. But when he has a kidney stone then that overwhelms the system and even his meditation attainments aren’t enough to counter-balance it. He still suffers intensely with kidney stones when they happen.
Lastly, most intense forms of pain tend to have a strong emotional component by default. Cluster headaches, for example, typically come with a powerful sense of doom along with the pain. It’s just part of the package it seems.
Very good points. QRI has a lot to say about all of these points, so I won’t repeat myself too much. I’ll address a couple points, but note there is a lot more to say that you can dig into in the provided links:
I think that pain is a particular manifestation of negative valence. It can trigger positive valence indirectly via e.g. energizing the system and then triggering neural annealing—nice waves of euphoria that are secondary and after the fact which are the reinforcing bits. Pain sans this secondary element is just unpleasant and bad, albeit perhaps not as bad as what you get when you mix both emotional and low level sensory negative valence together.
Importantly: mixed valence certainly complicates the picture, but above a certain intensity of sensation pain overwhelms whetever else is going on.
Shinzen Young’s concept of equanimity as not resisting sensations is a critical modifier on the valence of experience. That said, I’d say this modifies valence of the whole experience, and doesn’t necessarily take care of the low-level sensory negative valence. Stil, the bulk of a person’s valence under normal circumstances might be the result of how much they resist their current experience (even if pleasant otherwise). Extreme levels of equanimity, I’m convinced, can drastically lower the negative valence effects of pain.
This, however, has a limit. Even highly attained meditators (the “Buddha” included) would describe extreme pain as still a cause of suffering. Daniel Ingram, for example, can tolerate broken bones and all kinds of very intense painful sensations without them turning into suffering, so to speak. But when he has a kidney stone then that overwhelms the system and even his meditation attainments aren’t enough to counter-balance it. He still suffers intensely with kidney stones when they happen.
Lastly, most intense forms of pain tend to have a strong emotional component by default. Cluster headaches, for example, typically come with a powerful sense of doom along with the pain. It’s just part of the package it seems.
https://qualiacomputing.com/2021/04/04/buddhist-annealing-wireheading-done-right-with-the-seven-factors-of-awakening/
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/bvtAXefTDQgHxc9BR/just-look-at-the-thing-how-the-science-of-consciousness
https://qri.org/blog/symmetry-theory-of-valence-2020
https://qualiacomputing.com/2019/09/30/harmonic-society-3-4-art-as-state-space-exploration-and-energy-parameter-modulation/