The creation of evolutionary simulations that include pleasure, even if they are specific to mammals, could help us to understand experiences and behaviors in relation to sex, in general, and for all species. This project could provide additional evidence in the matter about whether insects have subjective experiences or not, by comparing the coherence of the model with the behaviors and observations we have of insects. The project could also help to better understand sexual assaults among humans, to prevent and minimize them.
It is very possible that we do not fully understand the experiences, behaviors and motivations in relation to sex in our own species, much less in other species. For example, in 2017 the British government eliminated a treatment program for sex offenders that had been applied in England and Wales since the early 1990s. Unfortunately, the aggressors who followed the program recidivized 10% compared to a figure of 8% of those who did not followed it. The following link contains this and some other examples that illustrate the complexity and lack of consensus in this matter.
The creation of evolutionary simulations could help us understand experiences and behaviors in relation to sex, in general, and for all species.
We have absolute evidence of our own subjective experiences in our own sexual activity (how much pleasure do we feel, when and how); very reliable evidence about the experiences of other members of our own species (through the descriptions made by other humans of their sexual activities), and a certain set of evidence in the case of other mammals (when listening to their moans and observing expressions on their faces, for example; and we could also have fMRI images of their brain activity during courtship and intercourse). However, we have little evidence about how sexual experiences can be subjectively in fish or in insects.
Having a coherent and evidence-compatible model that explains subjective sexual experiences in both humans and other species of large mammals, without being entirely reliable for other species (such as fish or insects), can be considered valuable as a tool for the reduction of uncertainty, based on reasoning by analogy, a type of inductive reasoning. The evidence obtained in this way may not be very large, but having it will bring us closer to the truth than not having it.
The research proposed here it is based on a model that a priori is considered valid. In this model, a part of the central nervous system (see dashed lines below) has programmed reactions to various stimuli (“Rules of behavior”) , while there is another system that is capable of feeling (“Generator of Experiences”), which in turn influences and is influenced by other subsystems. In diagram form it would be something like the following:
The body interacts with the environment. The body is fundamentally what determines the experiences, and these in turn can influence the body, although they will not usually do so directly, but through a rule of behavior. The rules of behavior (which include memory) take into account the information of the environment, the body and the experiences and with all this decide the behavior of the body.
In this project it is proposed to assume this scheme as valid and to create an artificial life system in which the evolution of different behaviors and experiences in relation to sex can occur, and specifically, anorgasmia, mono-orgasmia and multiple (multi / poly) orgasms. The simulation will help to understand how evolution can select certain behaviors and experiences and under what conditions. If this project were only aimed at representing and understanding external behaviors, it would not really bring great novelty, being another study in the field of ethology. The novelty in this case is that we are including and focusing on subjective experiences (pleasure).
This project could provide additional evidence in the matter about whether insects have subjective experiences or not, by comparing the coherence of the model with the behaviors and observations we have of insects. In the event that this project could provide evidence in favor of the sentience of insects, it would also be useful to clarify the debate about the possible sentience of the machines, which could be valuable for reducing the risk of an astronomical moral catastrophe that it would be the expansion of machines capable of suffering throughout the universe, something that we may be in time to stop, so it seems reasonable that it would be interesting to know more about whether the machines can feel or not.
The project could also help to better understand sexual assaults among humans, to prevent and minimize them.
How can we simulate sentience?
In the first place it should be clarified that it is not about creating sentience in a simulation, but that subjective experiences are taken into account as another element within the simulation. That is, in the same way that in the simulation we can represent 1 kg of aluminum, we can also represent an orgasm. These experiences (pleasure, pain) will be represented in the simulation under certain conditions or will be influenced by other elements. Additionally, the experiences could also cause the appearance or influence other elements. There are several ways to address the issue of the representation of sentience in a simulation. We will consider at least three:
- Case 1: Sentience may not be taken into account. This is the way in which most of the simulations of evolutionary systems are carried out, for example, those simulations that try to understand the evolution of the number of individuals of each species based on certain conditions, to predict, understand or prevent. For instanace, to prevent species extinctions or to anticipate how an ecosystem will behave in the face of the introduction of a new species. Philosophically, it can be said that this approach fits eliminativism (although others may disagree). For example, in this approach we would simulate the reproduction of humans or insects without taking into account the pleasure of orgasm; We would do as if it did not exist.
- Case 2: Sentience could emerge or appear under certain conditions, being a result of certain conditions, but without having any effect on other systems. Philosophically, this approach fits with monistic emergentism in which sentience is considered an epiphenomenon (a kind of side effect). For example, in this approach we would simulate the existence of orgasms under certain conditions. These orgasms could occur in greater or lesser numbers, with greater or lesser intensity, depending on several variables. However, these orgasms would in turn have no effect on anything else. Orgasms would be an inevitable consequence of certain material conditions having occurred, and it will be those material conditions that affect other systems, and not the orgasm itself.
- Case 3: Sentience is affected and affects other elements of the system. Philosophically, this approach fits with dualism. In this case the simulations admit that simulated subjective experiences, such as orgasms, have an effect on other elements of the system.
In a way it could be considered that this third approach (case 3) simply implies a formal difference from the previous case (case 2), and this will be true on many occasions. In them we can find equivalences between the ways of representing the three cases.
For example, suppose that A is a representation of a material situation; B is a representation of a subjective experience (an orgasm, for example); and C is a representation of another material situation. If we are in case 3, and in our simulation we represent that A always causes B (orgasm) and B always causes C, in case 2 we would say that A always causes B and that A always causes C, while if we are in the case 1 we would say that simply because of C.
| Case 1 | Case 2 | Case 3 |
| A —> C | A —> B
A —> C |
A —> B —> C |
Now, does case 2 contribute something differential to case 1? Does case 3 contribute something differential to cases 1 and 2? Depending on our theory or hypothesis about sentience —if we have it— we may give an affirmative or negative answer. I believe that making available to researchers the ability to handle all three cases offers a very valuable tool to understand the different theories and hypotheses and solve misunderstandings in the debates about them.
What would the simulation look like? What would it be like to interact with it?
In the simulation we could observe different individuals, with different rules of behavior, different criteria to generate different experiences, and different ways of reacting to their own experiences.
For example, individuals may experience pleasure as they engage in sexual approaches, and have a rule that brings them closer or makes them repeat what has given them pleasure. But they must also have some rule that tells them when to stop copulating, or they would die for lack of food.
If in the system we include an individual or group of individuals in whose rules (genes) were not the rules that induce them to copulate, we would observe how this behavior and rules disappear.
What would be a successful outcome of the project?
We currently have convincing explanations, for example, to explain the relationship between the size of the testicles and the level of promiscuity or to explain why the behavior of eating the male after intercourse is evolutionarily stable, offering a package with feces as a gift to the female , or riddled with sperm darts throughout the body. But these analyzes and explanations about sexual behaviors generally do not take into account subjective experiences as relevant factors.
The objective of this project would be met if we could design evolutionary environments that included sentience (pleasure and pain) as relevant elements of the system and that served to represent and make predictions about well-known behaviors and experiences (of humans, for example, in relation to the types of orgasms and their distribution in the population), putting this model to the test for other behaviors and species.
This would promote a new line of research with simulation models that include sentience, which may provide evidence in relation to the issue of the existence of sentience in non-human species, and therefore its about its moral relevance, as well as shedding light on cases of controversial or speculative suffering.
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