Part I
Suffering as error signalling

2 Defining suffering
 Medical definitions of pain
 Medical and psychological definitions suffering
 Ancient philosophical approaches to suffering
 Two main kinds of suffering
 Using the pain system for broadcasting errors
3 Frustration due to failed plan
 Agents, states, and goals
 Planning action sequences, and its great difficulty
 Frustration as not reaching planned goal
 Defining desire as a goal-suggesting mechanism
 Intention as commitment to a goal
 Heuristics can help in planning
4 Machine learning as minimization of errors
 Neurons and neural networks
 Finding the right function by learning
 Learning as minimization of errors
 Gradient optimization vs. evolution
 Learning associations by Hebbian rule
 Logic and symbols as an alternative approach
 Emergence of unexpected behaviour
5 Frustration due to reward prediction error
 Maximizing rewards instead of reaching goals
 Learning to plan using state-values and action-values
 Frustration as reward loss and prediction error
 Expectations or predictions are crucial for frustration
 Unexpected implications of state-value computation
 Evolutionary rewards as obsessions
 Reward maximization is insatiable
6 Suffering due to self-needs
 Self as long-term performance evaluation
 Self as self-preservation and survival
 Self as desires based on internal rewards
 Uncertainty, unpredictability, and uncontrollability as internal frustration
 Fear, threat, and frustration
7 Fast and slow intelligence and their problems
 Fast and automated vs. slow and deliberative
 Neural network learning is slow, data-hungry, and inflexible
 Using planning and habits together
 Advantages of categories and symbols
 Categorization is fuzzy, uncertain, and arbitrary
 The many faces of frustration: Summarizing the mechanisms of suffering