Philosophy Wire: Calculating probabilities… Calculating pain…

A Dartmouth study on how we use reward information for making choices shows how humans and monkeys adopt their decision-making strategies depending on the uncertainty of information present. The results of this study illustrated that for a simple gamble to obtain a reward, when the magnitude or amount of the reward is known but the probability of the reward is unknown and must be learned, both species will switch their strategy from combining reward information in a multiplicative way (in which functions of reward probability and magnitude are multiplied to obtain the so-called subjective value) to comparing the attributes in an additive way to make a decision. [1] Rewards. Incentives. Probabilities. So unethical we have become. That we calculate everything. That we dream of benefits and outcomes. But nothing worth having is related to pleasure. For pleasure makes us attach to here and now. But ethics is transcendental. Don’t get me wrong. Ethics is indeed related to pleasure. But not in the way our coward soul thinks it does. Look at the benefits. Look at pleasure. Find where eudaimonia is. And turn around. And seek pain! Feel your self! Everything going black. Everything turning into light…

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