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David Longley
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 Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2003 1:17 am Post subject: Re: What are the fundamental emotions? |
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In article <fa69ae35.0309031048.35748713@posting.google.com>, Eray
Ozkural exa <erayo@bilkent.edu.tr> writes
[quote]Joe Legris <jalegris@xympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:<3F55DFDF.9050106@xympatico.ca>...
I think your definition of emotion is too vague:
"The common discriminating property of emotions is that they result in a
clearly distinguishable sense experience when we can be aware of them!"
The above is not a definition really. I>m trying to talk about what>s
common.
Besides, I>m not trying to define away any problem, that>s why these
talks have to be vague.
By this definition, can you give an example of a clearly distinguishable
sense experience that is not an emotion?
Does this question make sense?
First, it>s not a "definition of emotion"... But if there is an
emotion, I think it is accompanied by a certain sense experience,
that>s a _very_ remarkable feature of an emotion. Anger wouldn>t be
anger if you couldn>t feel it. Denying that trivial observation would
be very Quinean and outright silly in my opinion.
However, there are such sense experiences that aren>t emotion. Think
of analyzing a visual scene without emotions involved. There is only
logic. Is that also an emotion? In our common sense psychology, we
don>t call that an emotion, rather maybe, it is characterized by the
lack of emotions in those high-level intellectual tasks. Still, there
is sensation, as the process is basically an analysis of sensory
input. There is no question about it!
At any rate, this touches one of the core problems: is there such a
thing as an unconscious emotion? The basic answer from psychology
seems to be saying "Yes! Definitely!". Now, how do we know that
philosophically? Is the "sense experience" unique to conscious
emotions then? And so forth....
Maybe you would care to expound on your own view rather than
criticizing my approach?
Best Regards,
__
Eray Ozkural
[/quote]
Your "approach" is very naive and ill-informed Eray.
if you are really interested, why don>t you try reading some of the very
large literature on the attribution of behaviour? I recommend you start
with Bem>s work on "Self-Perception" and then have a look at some of the
other work from the wider field of attribution theory. When you have
mastered some of that (and some of the work on brain mechanisms of
learning and motivation) you could come back and tell us what you think
you>ve learned.
What you call your "approach" is really just what you>ve picked up
without doing and serious study it would seem. Don>t you think *that*
should be criticised in someone who claims to be doing a doctorate?
And why the reference to Quine in the first paragraph?
--
David Longley |
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Joe Legris
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| Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2003 2:36 am Post subject: Re: What are the fundamental emotions? |
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Eray Ozkural exa wrote:
[quote]Joe Legris <jalegris@xympatico.ca> wrote in message news:<3F55DFDF.9050106@xympatico.ca>...
I think your definition of emotion is too vague:
"The common discriminating property of emotions is that they result in a
clearly distinguishable sense experience when we can be aware of them!"
The above is not a definition really. I>m trying to talk about what>s
common.
Besides, I>m not trying to define away any problem, that>s why these
talks have to be vague.
By this definition, can you give an example of a clearly distinguishable
sense experience that is not an emotion?
Does this question make sense?
First, it>s not a "definition of emotion"... But if there is an
emotion, I think it is accompanied by a certain sense experience,
that>s a _very_ remarkable feature of an emotion. Anger wouldn>t be
anger if you couldn>t feel it. Denying that trivial observation would
be very Quinean and outright silly in my opinion.
However, there are such sense experiences that aren>t emotion. Think
of analyzing a visual scene without emotions involved. There is only
logic. Is that also an emotion? In our common sense psychology, we
don>t call that an emotion, rather maybe, it is characterized by the
lack of emotions in those high-level intellectual tasks. Still, there
is sensation, as the process is basically an analysis of sensory
input. There is no question about it!
At any rate, this touches one of the core problems: is there such a
thing as an unconscious emotion? The basic answer from psychology
seems to be saying "Yes! Definitely!". Now, how do we know that
philosophically? Is the "sense experience" unique to conscious
emotions then? And so forth....
Maybe you would care to expound on your own view rather than
criticizing my approach?
Best Regards,
__
Eray Ozkural
[/quote]
If you want to discuss the conscious aspects of emotions, you will
probably have to exclude reptiles, fish and all simpler creatures -
there is little evidence that they have conscious lives.
Emotional states are usually seen as having two components, the
physiological state (such as heart rate) and the conscious feeling (such
as fear).
Conscious states are mediated by the cerebral cortex and physiological
states are mediated by several neural pathways including the amygdala,
the hypothalamus and the brain stem.
Experiments where human subjects were injected with epinephrine, which
causes a pounding heart and heightened alertness, had various conscious
reactions (as reported by the subjects) depending on whether they had
been informed beforehand of the expected physiological effects. So the
conscious component of emotion is not "hard-wired".
People can show emotional responses to subliminal (unconscious) stimuli.
They can also show physiological responses that have no corresponding
conscious experience, such as increased blood pressure.
So, in answer to the question "What are the fundamental emotions?", I
presume that you mean the physiological aspects, which would be
concerned with food, water, breathing, temperature regulation and sex.
The rest is luxury :-)
--
Joe Legris |
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rick++
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2003 3:40 am Post subject: Re: What are the fundamental emotions? |
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Newsweek mentions a DVD training course in recognizing emotions.
It was developed for cops to tell when emotions contradict testimony.
People have "micro-emotions" where they may display their real emotion
for a fraction of a second during a lie.
This course is also good for autistic and nerds who are deficient
in perceiving emotion. |
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Eray Ozkural exa
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2003 7:48 am Post subject: Re: What are the fundamental emotions? |
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rick303@hotmail.com (rick++) wrote in message news:<f7422d8e.0309031440.3a3b2e0c@posting.google.com>...
[quote]Newsweek mentions a DVD training course in recognizing emotions.
It was developed for cops to tell when emotions contradict testimony.
People have "micro-emotions" where they may display their real emotion
for a fraction of a second during a lie.
This course is also good for autistic and nerds who are deficient
in perceiving emotion.
[/quote]
There is a great deal going on in what kinds of information body
language can transmit. It turns out that even suppressed emotions show
themselves as very brief expressions. The question is are totally
unconscious emotions like that, or is there such a thing at all as
"unconscious emotions"?. We well know disgust, anger, fear, surprise,
etc. are linked to facial gestures, but are "all" emotions like that
or is it the case that only fundamental emotions have such a bodily
expression? If so, are those facial gestures hard coded? Is amazement
hard-coded? Is suspicion hard-coded? Or are they learnt? These are
interesting questions.
Regards,
__
Eray Ozkural |
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Eray Ozkural exa
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2003 8:27 pm Post subject: Re: What are the fundamental emotions? |
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Joe Legris <jalegris@xympatico.ca> wrote in message news:<3F565EF2.2000002@xympatico.ca>...
[quote]
If you want to discuss the conscious aspects of emotions, you will
probably have to exclude reptiles, fish and all simpler creatures -
there is little evidence that they have conscious lives.
[/quote]
I don>t want to limit discussion to conscious aspects of emotions, as
that might be severely handicapping us. That>s part of the question:
can emotions be totally unconscious? (ie. there is a feeling on your
mind that you can>t perceive) I think that is the case, but if they
have far-reaching effects then we can become aware of them resulting
in what I call "conscious emotions".
How do you know reptiles do not have any sense experience of emotions?
I think they do, it>s just that they are different from mammals. Let>s
not underestimate the complexity of those creatures.
What is there to being a reptile or a fish, can you tell? (Much like
Nagel>s question) That is in fact how I posed the question. What is
the simplest living being that does have emotions? (So we need to
answer what qualifies as emotions!)
[quote]Emotional states are usually seen as having two components, the
physiological state (such as heart rate) and the conscious feeling (such
as fear).
[/quote]
Each state of mind is ultimately associated with a physiological
state, so there is not much merit in stating emotions are like that
(since they are also states of mind)... Can we in general say that a
specific physilogical state is necessary for something to be called
emotion? Jealousy? Boredom? Anticipation? Hope? I don>t think so.
Maybe only the hard-wired ones, but there seem to be those that we
develop later.
Second component, conscious feeling I don>t think it always exists.
Why, it seems we have hidden desires all the time that come up in our
dreams!!!
[quote]Conscious states are mediated by the cerebral cortex and physiological
states are mediated by several neural pathways including the amygdala,
the hypothalamus and the brain stem.
Experiments where human subjects were injected with epinephrine, which
causes a pounding heart and heightened alertness, had various conscious
reactions (as reported by the subjects) depending on whether they had
been informed beforehand of the expected physiological effects. So the
conscious component of emotion is not "hard-wired".
[/quote]
You mean it is learnt! It should be an *essential* ability of
conscious cognitive systems to be able to think about themselves in
that way. Our brains can recognize and think about their own emotional
states. Then, of course people learn others' reactions, etc. and
probably learn from them how to express their own emotional states.
It>s funny how we take gestures from others!
[quote]People can show emotional responses to subliminal (unconscious) stimuli.
They can also show physiological responses that have no corresponding
conscious experience, such as increased blood pressure.
[/quote]
So, we can say that even bodily emotions sometimes go unnoticed by
consciousness as it is actuated.
[quote]So, in answer to the question "What are the fundamental emotions?", I
presume that you mean the physiological aspects, which would be
concerned with food, water, breathing, temperature regulation and sex.
The rest is luxury :-)
[/quote]
I do not presuppose that physiological aspects are fundamental! Why,
maybe there are "abstract emotions" that are fundamental, too! Maybe
curiosity is that? How do we ever know?
Of course in the evolution of minds, it is likely that physical
reactions developed first which necessitated bodily emotions. That
might mean emotions came before thought in a sense. I always like
saying emotion is identical to thought, but maybe it>s more accurate
to claim thought is borne of emotion.
Maybe I must rephrase my question. For an AI to be emotional, which
emotions must it be endowed with? It doesn>t need food, water,
breathing, temperature regulation or sex. Is the rest really luxury or
*necessary* for operation of our brains?
Regards,
__
Eray Ozkural |
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Lester Zick
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2003 8:58 pm Post subject: Re: What are the fundamental emotions? |
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On 4 Sep 2003 08:27:06 -0700, erayo@bilkent.edu.tr (Eray Ozkural exa)
wrote:
[quote]Joe Legris <jalegris@xympatico.ca> wrote in message news:<3F565EF2.2000002@xympatico.ca>...
If you want to discuss the conscious aspects of emotions, you will
probably have to exclude reptiles, fish and all simpler creatures -
there is little evidence that they have conscious lives.
I don>t want to limit discussion to conscious aspects of emotions, as
that might be severely handicapping us. That>s part of the question:
can emotions be totally unconscious? (ie. there is a feeling on your
mind that you can>t perceive) I think that is the case, but if they
have far-reaching effects then we can become aware of them resulting
in what I call "conscious emotions".
[/quote]
How about the stress that results from having some name on the tip of
your tongue? The stress is palpable yet one is unaware of the exact
antecedents.
[. . .]
[quote]
Maybe I must rephrase my question. For an AI to be emotional, which
emotions must it be endowed with? It doesn>t need food, water,
breathing, temperature regulation or sex. Is the rest really luxury or
*necessary* for operation of our brains?
I strongly suspect that for ai to be emotional in cannot be endowed[/quote]
with emotions at all because the design and installation of the
emotions would have to be deliberate. Rather like pseudo random number
generation on computers. The ai would only be able to simulate a
panoply of contrived emotions and emotional states.
If you want the ai to actually be emotional you>ll need to discover
the mechanics of emotions and install them on a machine. In which case
you don>t need to consider which emotions to design and install
because the mechanics will generate its own set.
Regards - Lester |
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David Longley
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2003 9:02 pm Post subject: Re: What are the fundamental emotions? |
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You might find the following helpful - you clearly have some agenda
which has yet to be satisfied.
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m0961/1999_Annual/54442298/p1/article.jh
tml
Like it or not, the research is about emotional *behaviour* and its
attribution. To see how psychologists traditionally study what you are
calling "emotion", you>ve got to be prepared to understand that they
have traditionally talked about such phenomena in other terms
(referential opacity raises its controversial head yet again).
You can make machines which emulate these behaviours (forget about DVDs
for the police). In fact, the place to look for the best examples of
this is the film industry, specifically to developments in CG and
animatronics not to mention training actors.
In article <fa69ae35.0309040727.55dfc891@posting.google.com>, Eray
Ozkural exa <erayo@bilkent.edu.tr> writes
[quote]Joe Legris <jalegris@xympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:<3F565EF2.2000002@xympatico.ca>...
If you want to discuss the conscious aspects of emotions, you will
probably have to exclude reptiles, fish and all simpler creatures -
there is little evidence that they have conscious lives.
I don>t want to limit discussion to conscious aspects of emotions, as
that might be severely handicapping us. That>s part of the question:
can emotions be totally unconscious? (ie. there is a feeling on your
mind that you can>t perceive) I think that is the case, but if they
have far-reaching effects then we can become aware of them resulting
in what I call "conscious emotions".
How do you know reptiles do not have any sense experience of emotions?
I think they do, it>s just that they are different from mammals. Let>s
not underestimate the complexity of those creatures.
What is there to being a reptile or a fish, can you tell? (Much like
Nagel>s question) That is in fact how I posed the question. What is
the simplest living being that does have emotions? (So we need to
answer what qualifies as emotions!)
Emotional states are usually seen as having two components, the
physiological state (such as heart rate) and the conscious feeling (such
as fear).
Each state of mind is ultimately associated with a physiological
state, so there is not much merit in stating emotions are like that
(since they are also states of mind)... Can we in general say that a
specific physilogical state is necessary for something to be called
emotion? Jealousy? Boredom? Anticipation? Hope? I don>t think so.
Maybe only the hard-wired ones, but there seem to be those that we
develop later.
Second component, conscious feeling I don>t think it always exists.
Why, it seems we have hidden desires all the time that come up in our
dreams!!!
Conscious states are mediated by the cerebral cortex and physiological
states are mediated by several neural pathways including the amygdala,
the hypothalamus and the brain stem.
Experiments where human subjects were injected with epinephrine, which
causes a pounding heart and heightened alertness, had various conscious
reactions (as reported by the subjects) depending on whether they had
been informed beforehand of the expected physiological effects. So the
conscious component of emotion is not "hard-wired".
You mean it is learnt! It should be an *essential* ability of
conscious cognitive systems to be able to think about themselves in
that way. Our brains can recognize and think about their own emotional
states. Then, of course people learn others' reactions, etc. and
probably learn from them how to express their own emotional states.
It>s funny how we take gestures from others!
People can show emotional responses to subliminal (unconscious) stimuli.
They can also show physiological responses that have no corresponding
conscious experience, such as increased blood pressure.
So, we can say that even bodily emotions sometimes go unnoticed by
consciousness as it is actuated.
So, in answer to the question "What are the fundamental emotions?", I
presume that you mean the physiological aspects, which would be
concerned with food, water, breathing, temperature regulation and sex.
The rest is luxury :-)
I do not presuppose that physiological aspects are fundamental! Why,
maybe there are "abstract emotions" that are fundamental, too! Maybe
curiosity is that? How do we ever know?
Of course in the evolution of minds, it is likely that physical
reactions developed first which necessitated bodily emotions. That
might mean emotions came before thought in a sense. I always like
saying emotion is identical to thought, but maybe it>s more accurate
to claim thought is borne of emotion.
Maybe I must rephrase my question. For an AI to be emotional, which
emotions must it be endowed with? It doesn>t need food, water,
breathing, temperature regulation or sex. Is the rest really luxury or
*necessary* for operation of our brains?
Regards,
__
Eray Ozkural
[/quote]
--
David Longley |
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David Longley
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2003 10:05 pm Post subject: Re: What are the fundamental emotions? |
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In article <3f575ea3.51706781@netnews.att.net>, Lester Zick
<lesterDELzick@worldnet.att.net> writes
<snip>
[quote]I strongly suspect that for ai to be emotional in cannot be endowed
with emotions at all because the design and installation of the
emotions would have to be deliberate. Rather like pseudo random number
generation on computers. The ai would only be able to simulate a
panoply of contrived emotions and emotional states.
If you want the ai to actually be emotional you>ll need to discover
the mechanics of emotions and install them on a machine. In which case
you don>t need to consider which emotions to design and install
because the mechanics will generate its own set.
Regards - Lester
[/quote]
Some posts back I outlined a rough sketch of how some influential
neuroanatomists (specifically Nauta) have drawn out homologies between
the neo and paleo striata and their relation to teloreceptors and
locomotion. This seems to have either been ignored, or just not
understood, so I>ll make a few more remarks about it.
The idea is that the old part of the brain, the limbic system as it is
widely called, is, in conjunction with the brain stem, a system of
*crude* and diffuse navigation and control. It>s associative areas are
the hippocampus and amygdala. The dominant sense is olfaction, and the
"movements" (e-motions) are somewhat diffuse as a consequence. With the
dominance of the neostriatum and fine motor control in conjunction with
vision (primarily), these e-motions are what we regard as more rational
behaviours.
If you poke around the amygdala, hippocampus, substantia innominata,
nucleus accumbens, olfactory tubercle, you>ll get all sorts of
behaviours which one immediately recognizes as the classic emotions. Not
so with the neocortex and neo-striatum.
The same is true of the monoamine neuromodulators which innervate these
areas.
From the above perspective, and bearing in mind other factors such as
the fact that behaviour tends to be "compositional" and layered, one
might, if building a machine to pass a full Turing like test, want to
build in layers of such diffuse behaviours in order to make the system
more human-like - "a sort of rounding the edges" strategy.
The important point to remember is one is always managing the observers
attributions, and that>s all. This is why I said that it>s worth looking
to what those working on animatronics and similar movie effects are up
to. Given the way the world now works (sadly), it will be folk like that
who get the funds to do the interesting work.
--
David Longley |
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Patty Cutman
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2003 10:55 pm Post subject: Re: What are the fundamental emotions? |
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Eray Ozkural exa wrote:
[quote]Maybe I must rephrase my question. For an AI to be emotional, which
emotions must it be endowed with? It doesn>t need food, water,
breathing, temperature regulation or sex. Is the rest really luxury or
*necessary* for operation of our brains?
[/quote]
We can give an AI emotional verbal *behavior*. Let>s say we have a
matrix of symonyms divided into classes of emotions. When the bot in in
a particular emotional state, it chooses those words for its responses.
The bot changes emotional states based upon scripts and the emotional
content of the words in its stimulus. Then we breed the bots through
many many generations - Alife style. The criteria of the the bots
survival being whether they hold our interest in dialogue. The scripts,
the states, and the word classifications all enolve in a complex way
that we cannot predict. That>s the beauty of Alife.
Now can it be said that such an *evolved* bot would actually feel the
emotional state in which it finds itself? I don>t know .. it>s a bit
philosophical for me to consider. Do we care?
Patty |
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David Longley
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2003 11:21 pm Post subject: Re: What are the fundamental emotions? |
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In article <G0L5b.355343$uu5.69966@sccrnsc04>, Patty Cutman
<pattycutman@excite.net> writes
[quote]Eray Ozkural exa wrote:
Maybe I must rephrase my question. For an AI to be emotional, which
emotions must it be endowed with? It doesn>t need food, water,
breathing, temperature regulation or sex. Is the rest really luxury or
*necessary* for operation of our brains?
We can give an AI emotional verbal *behavior*. Let>s say we have a
matrix of symonyms divided into classes of emotions. When the bot in
in a particular emotional state, it chooses those words for its
responses. The bot changes emotional states based upon scripts and the
emotional content of the words in its stimulus. Then we breed the bots
through many many generations - Alife style. The criteria of the the
bots survival being whether they hold our interest in dialogue. The
scripts, the states, and the word classifications all enolve in a
complex way that we cannot predict. That>s the beauty of Alife.
Now can it be said that such an *evolved* bot would actually feel the
emotional state in which it finds itself? I don>t know .. it>s a bit
philosophical for me to consider. Do we care?
Patty
[/quote]
The problem, as I see it is down in your last sentence. It would seem to
be the case that some folk in AI have already settled this for
themselves, adopting a metaphysical realist stance with respect to
"cognitions". They have pretty much convinced themselves that not only
are their virtual machines instantiating "cognitions", but also
"emotions".
One has to ask oneself, if one really is adopting a materialist position
with respect to cognitive behaviour, what do people like Chomsky, Fodor
and other "Cognitive Scientists" mean when they talk about computational
models of the mind? Particularly given what they have said themselves
about the nature of formal and natural languages.
--
David Longley |
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Patty Cutman
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2003 11:56 pm Post subject: Re: What are the fundamental emotions? |
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David Longley wrote:
[quote]In article <G0L5b.355343$uu5.69966@sccrnsc04>, Patty Cutman
pattycutman@excite.net> writes
Eray Ozkural exa wrote:
Maybe I must rephrase my question. For an AI to be emotional, which
emotions must it be endowed with? It doesn>t need food, water,
breathing, temperature regulation or sex. Is the rest really luxury or
*necessary* for operation of our brains?
We can give an AI emotional verbal *behavior*. Let>s say we have a
matrix of symonyms divided into classes of emotions. When the bot in
in a particular emotional state, it chooses those words for its
responses. The bot changes emotional states based upon scripts and the
emotional content of the words in its stimulus. Then we breed the bots
through many many generations - Alife style. The criteria of the the
bots survival being whether they hold our interest in dialogue. The
scripts, the states, and the word classifications all enolve in a
complex way that we cannot predict. That>s the beauty of Alife.
Now can it be said that such an *evolved* bot would actually feel the
emotional state in which it finds itself? I don>t know .. it>s a bit
philosophical for me to consider. Do we care?
Patty
The problem, as I see it is down in your last sentence. It would seem to
be the case that some folk in AI have already settled this for
themselves, adopting a metaphysical realist stance with respect to
"cognitions". They have pretty much convinced themselves that not only
are their virtual machines instantiating "cognitions", but also "emotions".
[/quote]
Ok, but where is the problem?
[quote]One has to ask oneself, if one really is adopting a materialist position
with respect to cognitive behaviour, what do people like Chomsky, Fodor
and other "Cognitive Scientists" mean when they talk about computational
models of the mind? Particularly given what they have said themselves
about the nature of formal and natural languages.
[/quote]
The bot I described above does *not* aspire to *model* human cognition.
It aspires only to interest humnan congnition. Whatever its internal
processes start out to be, and whatever they evolve to be, they would be
so far from human that I wouldn>t even compare them. Your response was
interesting and thought provoking, but what (if anything) did it have to
do with the bot project I described above?
Patty |
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David Longley
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2003 12:32 am Post subject: Re: What are the fundamental emotions? |
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In article <wVL5b.352229$o%2.160421@sccrnsc02>, Patty Cutman
<pattycutman@excite.net> writes
[quote]David Longley wrote:
In article <G0L5b.355343$uu5.69966@sccrnsc04>, Patty Cutman
pattycutman@excite.net> writes
Eray Ozkural exa wrote:
Maybe I must rephrase my question. For an AI to be emotional, which
emotions must it be endowed with? It doesn>t need food, water,
breathing, temperature regulation or sex. Is the rest really luxury or
*necessary* for operation of our brains?
We can give an AI emotional verbal *behavior*. Let>s say we have a
matrix of symonyms divided into classes of emotions. When the bot in
in a particular emotional state, it chooses those words for its
responses. The bot changes emotional states based upon scripts and
the emotional content of the words in its stimulus. Then we breed
the bots through many many generations - Alife style. The criteria
of the the bots survival being whether they hold our interest in
dialogue. The scripts, the states, and the word classifications all
enolve in a complex way that we cannot predict. That>s the beauty of Alife.
Now can it be said that such an *evolved* bot would actually feel
the emotional state in which it finds itself? I don>t know .. it>s a
philosophical for me to consider. Do we care?
Patty
The problem, as I see it is down in your last sentence. It would
seem to be the case that some folk in AI have already settled this
for themselves, adopting a metaphysical realist stance with respect to
"cognitions". They have pretty much convinced themselves that not only
are their virtual machines instantiating "cognitions", but also "emotions".
Ok, but where is the problem?
One has to ask oneself, if one really is adopting a materialist
position with respect to cognitive behaviour, what do people like
Chomsky, Fodor and other "Cognitive Scientists" mean when they talk
about computational models of the mind? Particularly given what they
have said themselves about the nature of formal and natural languages.
The bot I described above does *not* aspire to *model* human cognition.
It aspires only to interest humnan congnition. Whatever its internal
processes start out to be, and whatever they evolve to be, they would
be so far from human that I wouldn>t even compare them. Your response
was interesting and thought provoking, but what (if anything) did it
have to do with the bot project I described above?
Patty
[/quote]
Clearly not thought provoking enough.
Let>s put it another way - what has your interest in "bots" got to do
with the philosophy of AI? This *is* a philosophy of AI newsgroup, if
you find it "too philosophical" why not post your questions elsewhere
where the interests are not philosophical?
As to where the problem is - it>s there in each and every paragraph you
uncritically produce. All of it is a problem and I>ve already said why.
Elsewhere you ask others to do all the work, which comprises what
precisely? - wave a magic wand? ...What I find appalling is that even if
someone picked up on what you said and tried to engage you in serious
discussion about design, you>d just get bored and rush off to do
something else which looks exciting.....
You tell me what the problem is ..... what does it sound like to you?
--
David Longley |
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Patty Cutman
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| Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2003 1:09 am Post subject: Re: What are the fundamental emotions? |
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David Longley wrote:
[quote]In article <wVL5b.352229$o%2.160421@sccrnsc02>, Patty Cutman
pattycutman@excite.net> writes
David Longley wrote:
In article <G0L5b.355343$uu5.69966@sccrnsc04>, Patty Cutman
pattycutman@excite.net> writes
Eray Ozkural exa wrote:
Maybe I must rephrase my question. For an AI to be emotional, which
emotions must it be endowed with? It doesn>t need food, water,
breathing, temperature regulation or sex. Is the rest really luxury or
*necessary* for operation of our brains?
We can give an AI emotional verbal *behavior*. Let>s say we have a
matrix of symonyms divided into classes of emotions. When the bot
in in a particular emotional state, it chooses those words for its
responses. The bot changes emotional states based upon scripts and
the emotional content of the words in its stimulus. Then we breed
the bots through many many generations - Alife style. The criteria
of the the bots survival being whether they hold our interest in
dialogue. The scripts, the states, and the word classifications all
enolve in a complex way that we cannot predict. That>s the beauty
of Alife.
Now can it be said that such an *evolved* bot would actually feel
the emotional state in which it finds itself? I don>t know .. it>s
a philosophical for me to consider. Do we care?
Patty
The problem, as I see it is down in your last sentence. It would
seem to be the case that some folk in AI have already settled this
for themselves, adopting a metaphysical realist stance with respect
to "cognitions". They have pretty much convinced themselves that not
only are their virtual machines instantiating "cognitions", but also
"emotions".
Ok, but where is the problem?
One has to ask oneself, if one really is adopting a materialist
position with respect to cognitive behaviour, what do people like
Chomsky, Fodor and other "Cognitive Scientists" mean when they talk
about computational models of the mind? Particularly given what they
have said themselves about the nature of formal and natural languages.
The bot I described above does *not* aspire to *model* human
cognition. It aspires only to interest humnan congnition. Whatever
its internal processes start out to be, and whatever they evolve to
be, they would be so far from human that I wouldn>t even compare
them. Your response was interesting and thought provoking, but what
(if anything) did it have to do with the bot project I described above?
Patty
[/quote]
Hmmm .. what brough on such a hostile response? Incidentally in another
train where you responded to Glen re my response to him, I found your
explanation of the context of your Extensional Stance very informative.
I wish I had that explanation available to me when I first started
studying it.
[quote]Clearly not thought provoking enough.
Let>s put it another way - what has your interest in "bots" got to do
with the philosophy of AI? This *is* a philosophy of AI newsgroup,
[/quote]
I know and I>ve mulled over the pros and cons of posting my more
engineering concerns in this group. It boils down to the kind of people
who frequent it and the kind of dialogue that I am looking for right
now. When it becomes offensive, I>ll move it out of this group.
[quote]if
you find it "too philosophical" why not post your questions elsewhere
where the interests are not philosophical?
[/quote]
It>s too philosophical for me .. I would have nothing to add at the
present time. Cheeze, can>t I even say that here.
[quote]As to where the problem is - it>s there in each and every paragraph you
uncritically produce. All of it is a problem and I>ve already said why.
[/quote]
Do you find giving that kind of unspecific critizism productive?
[quote]Elsewhere you ask others to do all the work, which comprises what
precisely? - wave a magic wand? ...What I find appalling is that even if
someone picked up on what you said and tried to engage you in serious
discussion about design, you>d just get bored and rush off to do
something else which looks exciting.....
[/quote]
Sorry that>s a bit too intensional even for me to deal with. The magic
wand is the same wand that shaped human intelligence - evolution. I
heard a talk by Dennett and read some of his books and was impressed
with the abilities of Alife to solve some of the problems which cannot
be solved by just good engineering.
[quote]You tell me what the problem is ..... what does it sound like to you?
[/quote]
I don>t believe there is a problem - there may be a probelm with
modeling human cognition with computation - so what, I am not doing that.
Patty |
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Eray Ozkural exa
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:00 am Post subject: Re: What are the fundamental emotions? |
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Patty Cutman <pattycutman@excite.net> wrote in message news:<G0L5b.355343$uu5.69966@sccrnsc04>...
[quote]Now can it be said that such an *evolved* bot would actually feel the
emotional state in which it finds itself? I don>t know .. it>s a bit
philosophical for me to consider. Do we care?
[/quote]
Per strong AI, I do care because they seem to be necessary. I don>t
think we could say an AI is conscious if it couldn>t experience
emotions!
I>m not really thinking of those bodily sensations... There seem to be
quite a lot of emotions that do not seem to be based on those
physiological aspects, ie they seem to be purely mental. Can you guys
make a list of human emotions? It>s a long and interesting list.
But of course, I would more or less agree that the fundamental
emotions must be related to requirements of the organism, now that I
called some "motions" in prokaryotes "primordial emotions". That seems
a little silly now: how could a single-celled organism have emotions?
But it>s so hard to draw a line: maybe it>s not possible to draw one!
The reason there was saying that primordial emotions consisted of a
few reflex motions, there isn>t really a mind like the kind we enjoy
talking about.
As you can see, I>m pretty skeptical of any assumed position on the
nature of emotions and it was my intent to provoke some thought about
this issue. I expect the outcome to be more or less "thought=emotion",
maybe we will have to say "we can>t really talk about fundamental
emotions but we>ll have to consider something like the ortogonal basis
of cognition". Then, we>d be in trouble ;)
Cheers,
__
Eray Ozkural |
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David Longley
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2003 11:23 am Post subject: Re: What are the fundamental emotions? |
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In article <fa69ae35.0309041500.74bb2855@posting.google.com>, Eray
Ozkural exa <erayo@bilkent.edu.tr> writes
[quote]Patty Cutman <pattycutman@excite.net> wrote in message news:<G0L
5b.355343$uu5.69966@sccrnsc04>...
Now can it be said that such an *evolved* bot would actually feel the
emotional state in which it finds itself? I don>t know .. it>s a bit
philosophical for me to consider. Do we care?
Per strong AI, I do care because they seem to be necessary. I don>t
think we could say an AI is conscious if it couldn>t experience
emotions!
I>m not really thinking of those bodily sensations... There seem to be
quite a lot of emotions that do not seem to be based on those
physiological aspects, ie they seem to be purely mental. Can you guys
make a list of human emotions? It>s a long and interesting list.
But of course, I would more or less agree that the fundamental
emotions must be related to requirements of the organism, now that I
called some "motions" in prokaryotes "primordial emotions". That seems
a little silly now: how could a single-celled organism have emotions?
But it>s so hard to draw a line: maybe it>s not possible to draw one!
The reason there was saying that primordial emotions consisted of a
few reflex motions, there isn>t really a mind like the kind we enjoy
talking about.
As you can see, I>m pretty skeptical of any assumed position on the
nature of emotions and it was my intent to provoke some thought about
this issue. I expect the outcome to be more or less "thought=emotion",
maybe we will have to say "we can>t really talk about fundamental
emotions but we>ll have to consider something like the ortogonal basis
of cognition". Then, we>d be in trouble ;)
Cheers,
__
Eray Ozkural
[/quote]
With this language, you risk appearing to be one of those "crackpots",
or at least, one of those who take a metaphysically realist position
with respect to "AI"s being potentially "conscious" and experiencing
"emotion".
Here, again, are some views which might make provoke yet more thoughts:
'In his recent critique of realism, Putnam extends the
insight behind his Twin Earth examples. In "The Meaning
of 'Meaning'" he showed that nothing in the mind
determines meaning; his later work demonstrates that
nothing outside it does either. It follows from the
Lowenheim-Skolem Theorem that the axioms of a first-
order theory have multiple models in a given domain....
...Translation is not determinate.
It follows that the introduction of a 'language of
thought' or a 'deep structure', far from alleviating the
problem of radical translation, simply provides another
instance of it. For the prelinguistic child>s task is
then the same as the field linguist>s. Each seeks to map
initially alien utterances onto a language he already
has - the linguist, onto his home language; the child,
onto his innate language of thought. And as we have
seen, the same evidence is available to both. So the
child, endowed with a language of thought, is no better
off than the linguist. A spoken language admits of
multiple models in such a psychological structure, each
with an equal claim to be the determinant of meaning.
Moreover, none can be singled out as causally
responsible for the generation of surface locutions,
since 'cause>is not univocal. The term 'gavagai' no more
has a unique mental counterpart that it has a unique
English one. Translation, whether into the language of
thought or by means of the language of thought from one
spoken language to another, remains indeterminate.
Linguistic competence is not the ability to articulate
antecedently determinate ideas, intensions, or meanings;
nor is it the ability to reproduce the world in words.
We have no such abilities. It consists, rather, in
mastery of a complex social practice, and acquired
capacity to conform to the mores of a linguistic
community. It is neither more nor less than good
linguistic behavior.
Catherine Z. Elgin (1990)
FACTS THAT DON>T MATTER
Meaning and method - Essays in Honor of Hilary Putnam
'As soon as you get to interesting concepts, things go
poorly. You may find that hoping or expressions of anger
or joy don>t have a place in that culture, thanks to the
lack of the same array of practices that we have in
ours. Likewise for THEIR important concepts. Moreover,
having grasped "hope", the other people needn>t by
analogy grasp our "joy" or "anger", for each is embedded
in its own web. This may even be true for speech acts,
like promising or even stating, that are sometimes held
out as neutral between cultures.
What Hacking reports about joy, anger, and hope is also
apparently true of belief and its conceptual cousins.
Needham gives a painstaking analysis of various more or
less belief-like mental states recognised by a variety
of societies and concludes that in many cases there just
is nothing that matches up with our own notion of
belief. The practices of stating, reporting, avowing,
defending, and so on, which form the backdrop for our
own notion of belief, are unrecognizable in those
societies. Thus to the extent that these practices
constitute a necessary prerequisite for belief, persons
in these societies simply do not have any beliefs.
All of this poses some obvious difficulties for the
cognitive scientist who tries to press the folk notion
of belief into service in his theory.'
S. Stich (1983)
Will the Concepts of Folk Psychology Find a Place in Cognitive
Science? From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science:
The Case Against Belief p 217-8
'This argument was part of a larger project. Influenced
by Quine, I have long been suspicious about the
integrity and scientific utility of the commonsense
notions of meaning and intentional content. This is not,
of course, to deny that the intentional idioms of
ordinary discourse have their uses, nor that the uses
are important. But, like Quine, I view ordinary
intentional locutions as projective, context sensitive,
observer relative, and essentially dramatic. They are
not the sorts of locutions we should welcome in serious
scientific discourse. For those who share this Quinean
skepticism, the sudden flourishing of cognitive
psychology in the 1970s posed something of a problem. On
the account offered by Fodor and other observers, the
cognitive psychology of that period was exploiting both
the ontology and the explanatory strategy of commonsense
psychology. It proposed to explain cognition and certain
aspects of behavior by positing beliefs, desires, and
other psychological states with intentional content, and
by couching generalisations about the interactions among
those states in terms of their intentional content. If
this was right, then those of us who would banish talk
of content in scientific settings would be throwing out
the cognitive psychological baby with the intentional
bath water. On my view, however, this account of
cognitive psychology was seriously mistaken. The
cognitive psychology of the 1970s and early 1980s was
not positing contentful intentional states, nor was it
adverting to content in its generalisations. Rather, I
maintained, the cognitive psychology of the day was
"really a kind of logical syntax (only psychologized).
Moreover, it seemed to me that there were good reasons
why cognitive psychology not only did not but SHOULD not
traffic in intentional states. One of these reasons was
provided by the Autonomy argument.
Stephen P. Stich (1991)
Narrow Content meets Fat Syntax
in MEANING IN MIND - Fodor And His Critics
'The thesis we have been defending in this essay is that
connectionist models of a certain sort are incompatible
with the propositional modularity embedded in
commonsense psychology. The connectionist models in
question are those that are offered as models at the
COGNITIVE level, and in which the encoding of
information is widely distributed and subsymbolic. In
such models, we have argued, there are no DISCRETE,
SEMANTICALLY INTERPRETABLE states that play a CAUSAL
ROLE in some cognitive episodes but not others. Thus
there is, in these models, nothing with which the
propositional attitudes of commonsense psychology can
plausibly be identified. If these models turn out to
offer the best accounts of human belief and memory, we
shall be confronting an ONTOLOGICALLY RADICAL theory
change - the sort of theory change that will sustain the
conclusion that propositional attitudes, like caloric
and phlogiston, do not exist.'
Ramsey, Stich and Garon (1991)
Connectionism, eliminativism, and the future of folk psychology
--
David Longley |
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