Emotions ARE thoughts but they differ from most thoughts in the extent to which they involve the "primordial" brain AND the non-neural physiology of the body as well. This non-brain-centricity means that emotions are more "out of 'our' control" than most thoughts, where 'our' refers to the modeling center of the brain that we associate with the feeling of 'free will.'
-- Ben G > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Behalf Of Kevin > Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 10:00 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [agi] AGI's and emotions > > > Hello All, > > My feeling (pun intended) is that emotions are nothing other than thoughts > themselves. The reason we classify certain thoughts as emotions is that > there is an associated physical response with thoughts. If this sensation > is strong enough for us to notice, we call it emotion. This reinforcing > mechanism is in place to make sure we remembered the thoughts that matter > most (e.g.-when the tiger is chasing you, run like hell!) > Although we often > abuse this mechanism today by having strong physical responses when it > really makes no sense to do so.. > > --Kevin > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Bill Hibbard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 9:49 AM > Subject: RE: [agi] AGI's and emotions > > > > Ben, > > > > > I think that emotions in humans are CORRELATED with > value-judgments, but > are > > > certainly not identical to them. > > > > > > We can have emotions that are ambiguous in value, and we can > have strong > > > value judgments with very little emotion attached to them. > > > > That is reasonable. As I said in my first post on this topic, > > there is variation in the way people define "emotion". The > > quotes from Edelman and Crick show some precedence for > > defining emotion essentially as value, but it is also common > > to define emotion more in terms of expression or physiological > > response. > > > > Cheers, > > Bill > > > > ------- > > To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your > subscription, > > please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > ------- > To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate > your subscription, > please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED] > ------- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
