Sensual Experience

Writing a complicated computer program carries its own triumphs and failures, heights of exultation and pits of despair. But is it the same sort of sensual experience as, say, riding a motorcycle? I've never actually ridden a motorcycle, but I expect not.

It's interesting, I'd say that programming, while perhaps not a sensual experience, is engaging in a way that many other intellectual activities are not. Compare writing code to working out a math problem. They are both complex logical activities but there is a critical difference: programming has a strong element of interaction. You write a subroutine, run it, look at the results, repeat. If you made a mistake the machine will tell you.

I've spent about equal amounts of time on programming and mathematics, but I consider myself far more proficient at programming. I'm confident that I can solve most typical programming problems, while even basic math problems are far more intimidating and error-prone (how do you calculate the integral of 1/(x^2+c^2) again...? something about the residue theorem?). I believe this asymmetry is due to the fact that one can "interact" with computer programs.

Nitpick:

Isn't it the nose, rather than the tongue, that's responsible for much of the sensory variety in food? (Stuff doesn't taste the same when you have a stuffed nose, for example.)

Some people with synesthaesia can "feel" numbers and thus perform amazing calculations. It would only make sense to have something similar for other tasks, like computer programming?

I feel like practice has allowed me to develop a modality for code (really, for informational relationships, control flow, and the like, which includes other things like Bayes-structure) which allows programming to be mildly sensual, and the richness of the aesthetic terms used by hackers makes me think this must be fairly common. Still, of course, not only is the sensation much weaker than anything I have natural wetware for, but the lack of a direct interface between the modality and the actual code makes the experience more like reading a good description of driving a motorcycle than driving a motorcycle.

Speculatively, maybe nerdiness involves a high ability to turn new things into sensual experiences. Jumping off from the point about sex, this could help explain the apparent higher frequency of kinkiness among nerds.

Anonymous, that reminds me of some anecdote by Feynman where he has complex mathematical ideas described to him by young students. He wouldn't fully understand them, but he would imagine a shape, and for each new concept he'd add an extra bit, like a squiggly tail or other appendage. When something didn't fit in right, it would be instantly obvious to him, even if he couldn't explain exactly why.

Improvised sensory modality for maths?

Not just novel challenges, but novel high-bandwidth senses and corresponding new brain areas. Widening the sensorium to include new vivid, detailed experiences. And not neglecting the other half of the equation, high-bandwidth motor connections - new motor brain areas, to control with subtlety our new limbs

While I do feel a bit embarassed to do so, I still feel that I should plug my short story "In a Billion Years", as it seems to be a kind of an example of the thing Eli is talking about. (Apologies if this isn't considered appropriate.)

I've spent about equal amounts of time on programming and mathematics, but ... I'm confident that I can solve most typical programming problems, while even basic math problems are far more intimidating and error-prone ... I believe this asymmetry is due to the fact that one can "interact" with computer programs.

Quite true. This is one of the reasons there's so much interest in developing interactive proof assistants (HOL, Coq, Isabelle/Isar...) so that they can be used for "ordinary" mathematics. Not everyone likes both programming and math but for those who do, developing formalized mathematics on a proof assistant is a very engaging and even addictive experience.

"By now, it's probably true that at least some people have eaten 162,329 potato chips in their lifetimes. That's even less novelty and challenge than carving 162,329 table legs."

Nitpick: it takes much less time and mental energy to eat a potato chip than to carve a table leg, so the total quantity of sphexishness is much smaller.

While I do feel a bit embarassed to do so, I still feel that I should plug my short story "In a Billion Years", as it seems to be a kind of an example of the thing Eli is talking about. (Apologies if this isn't considered appropriate.) When you write like that, plug away!

Ettinger's "Man into Superman" spent a great deal of time on this, though most of the book, if I remember correctly (I read it once, 25 years ago), was about cryogenics. He spent a whole chapter talking about changes in sexual modes, not just rewiring the brain but adding new organs, too.

Oops, I meant cryonics, not cryogenics.

Laugh. Your whole body's sense of touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing are part of sexual experience, at least good sex. . .

I'd like to interrupt this discussion to ask a question.

A typical "silly question" to ask a theist is, "If heaven is so great, why not kill yourself right now, so you can get there immediately?" The usual answers involve things like "suicide is a sin" and such. (Incidentally, many Islamic suicide bombers use exactly that reasoning to justify their participation in such activities.)

I have a similar question. If you are sufficiently dissatisfied with life in the world as it is, does it make sense to sign up for cryonics and then kill yourself, hoping to "wake up" in a better future, rather than continuing to live in the present until some thing else causes your death?

I was wondering who would be the first to say that. That's why I specifically talked about the signal sent out from the sex organs and contrasted it to the signal from the tongue.

Yes, if you count the whole sexual experience, it can be more complicated. But the sad fact of the matter is that Cosmopolitan has to offer 73 different bits of sex advice every month, and long-term couples have to go to such lengths to prevent sexual boredom, just because creating sexual variety is so much more difficult than sprinkling cinnamon on an apple. If our taste buds were as complexity-impoverished as our sex organs, restaurants would also have to drip hot wax on your tongue just to keep you interested.

@Doug: By the logic of shutting up and multiplying, it does make moral sense if your life is that awful, you've got strong enough confidence in both the preservation process and that someone will create a Friendly AI to revive you, and there isn't anything left you can do for other people.

I mean, if I was wrinkling up like a prune from old age and my brain was rotting to the point where I had nothing special left to contribute, I'd prefer to be cryonically suspended immediately rather than wait another 10 years to die of Alzheimer's.

However, under the present legal system, all suicides get autopsied which is incompatible with cryosuspension, not to mention many life insurance policies. So no, you can't actually do this.

Though if the world manages to continue that long, it's a law that I hope will change before I get an opportunity to die of Alzheimer's. They might be able to retrieve lost memories after bringing me back, but the dying process doesn't sound like fun. Regardless of the morality, it's a fact that death doesn't scare me nearly as much as old age.

"long-term couples have to go to such lengths to prevent sexual boredom"

On this subject I generally remark that if you are so bored, then you are 1 - living and sleeping with the wrong person and/or 2 - not communicating your sexual and emotional needs well. That you might communicate them well but they are not heard or acted upon takes you back to 1. If you are communicating well, and with the right person: wow. It can be wow all the time.

Too few parameters, too few dimensions, just amplitude/quality and duration. If there were more you'd have to be smart to find it interesting. Why is thinking so complex and multi-dimensional? You actually have to be smart to find it interesting. Does evolution select for people who find thinking difficult? It kind of seems so. Is there a benefit to that? Or is the difficulty inevitable, like lifting something heavy has to be difficult, require more effort by design (of the universe). Surely even a semi-smart AI from the lowest rungs of mind-design space would be bored to tears by our, er, "thought" processes...

because creating sexual variety is so much more difficult than sprinkling cinnamon on an apple.

A friend of mine, who shall rename nameless, likened monogamy to eating chocolate cake and nothing else for the rest of your life. . .

frelkins: in that vein what if we could flip the switch in the brain that usually only flips when you are sleeping with a new partner? isn't this half of humanties sex problems gone in one shot? it seems to me that the realm of sex is the one in which it is most obvious that desires shaped by natural selection are not in line with actual happiness and fulfillment.

What's a tiger, real or virtual, doing on the savannah?

@nazgulnarsil

"flip the switch in the brain"

I guess you mean undo the oxytocin & vasopressin effects that caused pair bonding? Get that old dopamine, adrenaline & serotonin flowing wild & free, or whatever the ultimate mechanism is proven to be? I suppose we could give men little vials of vasopressin suppressors to inject themselves with so that it would "feel new" each time?

Evolution appears to totally suck. As a man, you want it somewhat new (vasopressin suppression) but as a woman, I actually like it better when it's not new - I like to feed that oxytocin pathway! I wanna get attached to you! Attached sex is better for me!

At first that seems like a disconnect, but actually men want the relationship too, just as much as women: you want me attached to you - because you wanna know that you're the one who knocked me up, nobody else. And you want me to feed the oxytocin pathway, 'cuz you want me to have as much sex with you as possible, so as to knock me up. Which is fine with me, as my ultimate goal is to get knocked up, right?

"desires shaped by natural selection"

Modern life and contraceptives aside, that monkey brain is strong, sure. The question is of course which monkey? Socially we seem sometimes very chimp, all promiscuity whenever we can sneak outta the watchful eyes of the social order.

Intellectually however we sometimes seem more orangutan, which is interesting, as boy orangutans seem to have 2 techniques depending on life-stage. In one, they call-n-wait for chicks to come; win the other, they're happy to sneak-n-rape.

Gorillas of course are all-harem all-the-time with the dominant male guarding his females. Before the arrival of Christianity, doesn't it seem that most human societies were frankly more gorilla? Even Islam, ancient Judaism, ancient Hinduism, ancient Confucianism, and Yoruba make clear polygyny's cool, wives or concubines - whatever.

The issue is reconciling that with our current lifestyle - as Robin says, being the best humans we can be.

frelkins, have you read "Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence"? I have a big review with perhaps too much summary here. I'm certainly not an authority, so I encourage you to read it yourself.

I'm not sure if my lack of similar experiences when programming is due to my low programming talent or is linked to my poor sense of taste and smell. Though I suppose there could be a common cause for all of them.

Technically, most life insurance policies do pay out in the event of suicide, as long as the policy is at least two years old.

Sensual experience too easily renders a task involving.

Say what?

I would love a sensory modality for code.

@TGGP

Oh no. Males aren't "demonic;" men are great. Yay, men. I find that whole thing quite overstated, frankly.

Sir Isaiah Berlin is so eloquent when he discusses the space of human action in his essay on Historical Inevitability. The space for human action may be more limited than we at first think; but it is not entirely removed. Value pluralism exists, but that doesn't mean we can't move forward once we have acknowledged and analyzed that, as Charles Blattberg argues.

Because we share the common ancestor and are probably stuck with monkey brains doesn't mean we cannot be better people. It just means that we have to devote ourselves to working harder to end self-deception, to devise institutions that work with what inherent structural incentives we may have, to reconcile and communicate. You know, overcome bias.

Elkins, the authors make a similar point in the book. I think you might like it.

You want to... what? Change your brain so that you like programming more? Huh?

Riddle me this, sensei:

What type of video game would a computer programmer whose most sensual experience was programming computers?

That's right, he'd program computer games about programming computer games.

In the words of /b/:

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

To me this points to the fact that sensual experience is overrated. Not that is useless, of course. I like eating chocolate, and many other "sensual experiences", and I wouldn't want to lose them. But looking at games - well, I tend to find modern games more boring and less pleasant to play than good-old games of before, because they focus so much on making realistic graphics and thrilling music, and much less on making a game which is actually fun to play. Comparing comparable games, I enjoyed Planescape: Torment much more than any more modern computer role-playing game that has much better graphics than 640x480 2d tiles.

But well... that could also be a case of preferring the games I played as a child/teenager to the ones I play now, which is quite a general bias.

But there is another more dramatic view of this : the kind of games I enjoy the most are roleplaying game (the pen and paper version), in which sensory input is very low. We do add a bit of music sometimes (but not that often), and having a nice rulebook with pretty (or scary) pictures does add to the game, sure. Sensory input is not meaningless. But it's not, at least to me, the most important part of a game - or even one of the most important part.

I'm also wondering how much I'm "abnormal" in this respect. I prefer books over movies, by far. I prefer pen&paper role-playing to graphically heavy game. Many people have the opposite preferences...

It's a very old observation, that Homo sapiens was made to hunt and gather on the savanna, rather than work in an office. Civilization and its discontents...

I'm wondering if you don't necessarily need to modify the human brain in order to make this problem at least a bit better. There are already some jobs that are much closer to "savanna" than "office." I chose to go into nursing because, among other things, I knew about my father's experience working in a cubicle and I never wanted that. Nursing is both intellectually stimulating (very much so in critical care/ICU, which is where I'm currently doing my final clinical rotation), and also "sensual" in the way you describe. I get a huge amount of satisfaction from manipulation physical materials and supplies–mixing drugs, priming IV tubing, changing dressings, etc. It's fun. And then there's the direct human contact, which is kind of exhausting for an introvert like me, but also really, really rewarding.

I'm guessing that jobs like electrician, plumber, etc, are probably similar in having both intellectually and sensorially stimulating aspects. Manual labor or construction leans more towards the sensory, engineering/science towards the intellectual (although some scientists get to play with cool equipment, samples, etc), math and programming are almost solely intellectual, and a great deal of office work seems to be neither.

There are a couple of questions this brings up for me. 1) Can "boring" jobs be made more sensual? I wonder how much of a difference it would make if offices were more colourful, contained obstacle courses, involved walking around more, etc? It sounds silly and even like a waste of time, but if it keeps employees engaged, it might save time. 2) Do boring jobs really need to be done by humans? I'm not talking about jobs like math and programming, which aren't 'boring', just unilaterally intellectual. 3) Can strongly intellectual jobs be reformatted in a more physical way? For example, in the future, could programmers and mathematicians manipulate symbols in the air, like Tony Stark does in Iron Man? This would at least activate significantly more visual cortex than symbols on a screen. And all of these options seem significantly more achievable, with current technology, than trying to change the human brain.

I want a sensory modality for regular expressions.

I approve.

I both ride motorcycles and program computers. Can confirm, finally getting the program to run is an order of magnitude more thrilling than any particular moment on the motorcycle, but the motorcycle offers a little bit more consistency over total time spent.