Are wireheads happy? — LessWrong
Related to: Utilons vs. Hedons, Would Your Real Preferences Please Stand Up
相关话题：效用论者 vs. 快乐主义者，你真实的偏好请站出来
And I don’t mean that question in the semantic “but what is happiness?” sense, or in the deep philosophical “but can anyone not facing struggle and adversity truly be happy?” sense. I mean it in the totally literal sense. Are wireheads having fun?
我这里的问题不是语义上的“幸福到底是什么？”那种意思，也不是那种深层哲学意义上的“没有面对挣扎和逆境的人能真正感到幸福吗？”的疑问。我是完全字面地在问：接入电刺激的“线头党”（wireheads）真的在享受乐趣吗？
They look like they are. People and animals connected to wireheading devices get upset when the wireheading is taken away and will do anything to get it back. And it’s electricity shot directly into the reward center of the brain. What’s not to like?
看上去似乎是的。人和动物在连接到线头装置后，被取下时会很沮丧，并且会不惜一切去把它弄回来。那只是直接把电流打到大脑的奖励中枢。有什么不喜欢的呢？
Only now neuroscientists are starting to recognize a difference between “reward” and “pleasure”, or call it “wanting” and “liking”. The two are usually closely correlated. You want something, you get it, then you feel happy. The simple principle behind our entire consumer culture. But do neuroscience and our own experience really support that?
只是现在神经科学家开始区分“奖励”（reward）和“愉悦”（pleasure），或者称之为“想要”（wanting）与“喜欢”（liking）。二者通常紧密相关：你想要某物，得到了，然后你感到快乐。这是我们整个消费文化背后的简单原理。但神经科学和我们自身的经验真的支持这一点吗？
It would be too easy to point out times when people want things, get them, and then later realize they weren’t so great. That could be a simple case of misunderstanding the object’s true utility. What about wanting something, getting it, realizing it’s not so great, and then wanting it just as much the next day? Or what about not wanting something, getting it, realizing it makes you very happy, and then continuing not to want it?
指出人们想要某样东西、得到了，然后后来发现并没有那么好，这样的例子太容易了。这可能只是误解了该物品的真实效用。那想要某样东西、得到了、觉得并不那么好、但第二天仍然同样想要它怎么办？或者根本不想要某样东西、却得到了、发现它能让你非常快乐、但仍然继续不想要它呢？
The first category, “things you do even though you don’t like them very much” sounds like many drug addictions. Smokers may enjoy smoking, and they may want to avoid the physiological signs of withdrawl, but neither of those is enough to explain their reluctance to quit smoking. I don’t smoke, but I made the mistake of starting a can of Pringles yesterday. If you asked me my favorite food, there are dozens of things I would say before “Pringles”. Right now, and for the vast majority of my life, I feel no desire to go and get Pringles. But once I’ve had that first chip, my motivation for a second chip goes through the roof, without my subjective assessment of how tasty Pringles are changing one bit.
第一类，“虽然不是很喜欢但还是会做的事”听起来像许多毒瘾。吸烟者可能喜欢抽烟，也可能想避免生理上的戒断症状，但仅有这些还不足以解释他们为何不愿戒烟。我不吸烟，但昨天我犯了打开一罐品客薯片的错误。如果你问我最喜欢的食物是什么，在说“品客”之前我会先说很多其他东西。在现在，以及我生命中的绝大多数时间里，我并不渴望去拿品客薯片。但一旦吃下第一片，想吃第二片的动机会飙升，而我对品客有多好吃的主观评价却一点都没有改变。
Think of the second category as “things you procrastinate even though you like them.” I used to think procrastination applied only to things you disliked but did anyway. Then I tried to write a novel. I loved writing. Every second I was writing, I was thinking “This is so much fun”. And I never got past the second chapter, because I just couldn’t motivate myself to sit down and start writing. Other things in this category for me: going on long walks, doing yoga, reading fiction. I can know with near certainty that I will be happier doing X than Y, and still go and do Y.
把第二类想成“那些你喜欢却总拖延的事”。我曾以为拖延只发生在你不喜欢但不得不做的事上。后来我尝试写小说。我喜欢写作。每当我在写的时候，我都会想“这太有趣了”。但我从来没写过第二章，因为我就是无法鼓起劲坐下来开始写。对我来说，这一类的其他例子还有：长时间散步、练瑜伽、读小说。我几乎可以肯定地知道做 X 会比做 Y 更让我快乐，但我仍然会去做 Y。
Neuroscience provides some basis for this. A University of Michigan study analyzed the brains of rats eating a favorite food. They found separate circuits for “wanting” and “liking”, and were able to knock out either circuit without affecting the other (it was actually kind of cute - they measured the number of times the rats licked their lips as a proxy for “liking”, though of course they had a highly technical rationale behind it). When they knocked out the “liking” system, the rats would eat exactly as much of the food without making any of the satisifed lip-licking expression, and areas of the brain thought to be correlated with pleasure wouldn’t show up in the MRI. Knock out “wanting”, and the rats seem to enjoy the food as much when they get it but not be especially motivated to seek it out. To quote the science 1:
神经科学对此提供了一些依据。密歇根大学的一项研究分析了老鼠吃最喜欢食物时的大脑。他们发现了“想要”和“喜欢”的不同回路，并且能够在不影响另一回路的情况下关闭其中任一回路（这其实有点可爱——他们以老鼠舔嘴唇的次数作为“喜欢”的代理指标，尽管他们当然有高度技术性的理由）。当他们关闭“喜欢”系统时，老鼠会吃下同样多的食物，但不会做出任何满足的舔嘴唇表情，并且被认为与愉悦相关的大脑区域在 MRI 中不会显现。关闭“想要”时，老鼠在获得食物时似乎同样享受，但并不会特别有动力去寻找食物。引用那篇科学研究 1 ：
Pleasure and desire circuitry have intimately connected but distinguishable neural substrates. Some investigators believe that the role of the mesolimbic dopamine system is not primarily to encode pleasure, but “wanting” i.e. incentive-motivation. On this analysis, endomorphins and enkephalins - which activate mu and delta opioid receptors most especially in the ventral pallidum - are most directly implicated in pleasure itself. Mesolimbic dopamine, signalling to the ventral pallidum, mediates desire. Thus “dopamine overdrive”, whether natural or drug-induced, promotes a sense of urgency and a motivation to engage with the world, whereas direct activation of mu opioid receptors in the ventral pallidum induces emotionally self-sufficient bliss.
愉悦与渴望的神经回路有密切关联但可区分的神经基质。一些研究者认为中脑边缘多巴胺系统的作用并非主要编码愉悦，而是“想要”，即incentive-motivation.。按照这种分析，内啡肽和脑啡肽——它们主要在腹苍白球激活μ和δ类阿片受体——与愉悦本身最直接相关。中脑边缘多巴胺向腹苍白球传递信号，介导渴望。因此“多巴胺过载”，无论是自然产生还是由药物引起，都会促使紧迫感和与世界互动的动机，而在腹苍白球直接激活μ阿片受体则会引发情感上自足的福乐。
The wanting system is activated by dopamine, and the liking system is activated by opioids. There are enough connections between them that there’s a big correlation in their activity, but the correlation isn’t one and in fact activation of the opioids is less common than the dopamine. Another quote:
想要系统由多巴胺激活，喜欢系统由阿片类激活。它们之间有足够多的连接以致活动呈高度相关，但相关性并非完全一致，实际上阿片类的激活比多巴胺更不常见。另一段引用：
It’s relatively hard for a brain to generate pleasure, because it needs to activate different opioid sites together to make you like something more. It’s easier to activate desire, because a brain has several ‘wanting’ pathways available for the task. Sometimes a brain will like the rewards it wants. But other times it just wants them.
大脑产生快感相对困难，因为它需要同时激活不同的鸦片受体位点，才能让你更喜欢某样东西。激发欲望则容易得多，因为大脑有几条“想要”通路可用于此任务。有时候大脑会既想要又喜欢它所得到的奖励，但有时它只是想要它们。
So you could go through all that trouble to find a black market brain surgeon who’ll wirehead you, and you’ll end up not even being happy. You’ll just really really want to keep the wirehead circuit running.
所以你可能费尽心思去找黑市上的脑外科医生给你接线成“线头”，结果你连开心都不会。你只会非常非常想让这个接线回路继续运行。
Problem: large chunks of philosophy and economics are based upon wanting and liking being the same thing.
问题是：哲学和经济学的大部分理论都建立在“想要”和“喜欢”是同一回事的基础上。
By definition, if you choose X over Y, then X is a higher utility option than Y. That means utility represents wanting and not liking. But good utilitarians (and, presumably, artificial intelligences) try to maximize utility (or do they?). This correlates contingently with maximizing happiness, but not necessarily. In a worst-case scenario, it might not correlate at all - two possible such scenarios being wireheading and an AI without the appropriate common sense.
按定义，如果你选择 X 而不是 Y，那么 X 的效用就高于 Y。那就意味着效用代表的是“想要”而不是“喜欢”。但优秀的功利主义者（以及大概的人工智能）试图最大化效用（或者说它们会吗？）。这在某种程度上与最大化幸福相关，但不一定总是相关。在最坏的情况下，它可能根本不相关——两个可能的情形就是线头化（wireheading）和缺乏适当常识的人工智能。
Thus the deep and heavy ramifications. A more down-to-earth example came to mind when I was reading something by Steven Landsburg recently (not recommended). I don’t have the exact quote, but it was something along the lines of:
因此导致了深远而严重的影响。最近我在读史蒂文·兰兹堡（Steven Landsburg）的一篇文章时（不推荐），想到了一个更接地气的例子。我没有确切的引用，但大意是这样的：
According to a recent poll, two out of three New Yorkers say that, given the choice, they would rather live somewhere else. But all of them have the choice, and none of them live anywhere else. A proper summary of the results of this poll would be: two out of three New Yorkers lie on polls.
根据一项最新民意调查，三分之二的纽约人表示，如果有选择，他们宁愿住在别处。但他们都有选择权，却没有人真的搬走。对这项民意调查结果的恰当总结应是：三分之二的纽约人在民意调查中说谎。
This summarizes a common strain of thought in economics, the idea of “revealed preferences”. People tend to say they like a lot of things, like family or the environment or a friendly workplace. Many of the same people who say these things then go and ignore their families, pollute, and take high-paying but stressful jobs. The traditional economic explanation is that the people’s actions reveal their true preferences, and that all the talk about caring about family and the environment is just stuff people say to look good and gain status. If a person works hard to get lots of money, spends it on an iPhone, and doesn’t have time for their family, the economist will say that this proves that they value iPhones more than their family, no matter what they may say to the contrary.
这总结了经济学中一种常见的思路，即“揭示性偏好”的概念。人们往往会说自己喜欢很多事物，比如家庭、环境或友好的工作场所。许多说这些话的人随后却忽视家庭、污染环境，或选择高薪但压力大的工作。传统经济学的解释是，人们的行为揭示了他们真正的偏好，所有关于关心家庭和环境的言论只是人们为了表现良好和获取地位而说的。如果一个人努力工作赚很多钱，把钱花在 iPhone 上，却没有时间陪家人，经济学家会说这证明他比起家庭更看重 iPhone，不管他们口头上怎么说。
The difference between enjoyment and motivation provides an argument that could rescue these people. It may be that a person really does enjoy spending time with their family more than they enjoy their iPhone, but they’re more motivated to work and buy iPhones than they are to spend time with their family. If this were true, people’s introspective beliefs and public statements about their values would be true as far as it goes, and their tendency to work overtime for an iPhone would be as much a “hijacking” of their “true preferences” as a revelation of them. This accords better with my introspective experience, with happiness research, and with common sense than the alternative.
享受与动机之间的差异可以为这些人提供一个辩护理由。可能一个人确实更喜欢花时间和家人在一起，而不是使用他们的 iPhone，但他们为了工作和买 iPhone 更有动力，而不像花时间陪家人那样有动力。如果情况真是如此，人们对自己价值观的内省信念和公开表述在其范围内会是真实的，而他们为了买 iPhone 加班的倾向既可以被看作对其“真实偏好”的“劫持”，也可以被看作这些偏好的显现。这比替代解释更符合我的内省体验、幸福研究以及常识。
Not that the two explanations are necessarily entirely contradictory. One could come up with a story about how people are motivated to act selfishly but enjoy acting morally, which allows them to tell others a story about how virtuous they are while still pursuing their own selfish gain.
并非这两种解释必然完全矛盾。可以编出一种说法：人们在行动上受利己动机驱使，但在行为过程中感到道德上的享受，这使得他们既能向他人讲述自己多么有美德，同时又能继续追求自己的利己利益。
Go too far toward the liking direction, and you risk something different from wireheading only in that the probe is stuck in a different part of the brain. Go too far in the wanting direction, and you risk people getting lots of shiny stuff they thought they wanted but don’t actually enjoy. So which form of good should altruists, governments, FAIs, and other agencies in the helping people business respect?
如果过分追求“喜欢”的方向，你面临的风险与电极刺激脑部不同之处仅在于探针卡在了大脑的另一个部位。若过分偏向“想要”的方向，则可能让人们获得大量他们以为想要但实际上并不享受的闪亮东西。那么，利他主义者、政府、友好人工智能以及其他从事助人事业的机构应当尊重哪种善呢？
**Sources/Further Reading:
**
1. Wireheading.com, especially on a particular University of Michigan study
1. Wireheading.com，特别是关于密歇根大学的一项研究
2. New York Times: A Molecule of Motivation, Dopamine Excels at its Task
2. 纽约时报：一种激励分子，多巴胺在其任务上表现出色
3. Slate: The Powerful and Mysterious Brain Circuitry…
3. 史莱特：强大而神秘的大脑回路…
4. Related journal articles (1, 2, 3)
x
连线成瘾者快乐吗？——LessWrong --- Are wireheads happy? — LessWrong