>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Mike Tintner [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote
You only need emotions when you're dealing with problems that are problematic, ill-structured, and involving potentially infinite reasoning. (Chess qualifies as that for a human being, not for a program). When dealing with such problems, you continually have to reevaluate your goals - their rewards, risks and costs - which you do primarily, in the first instance, in the shape of emotions. You have to do this because you "don't know what you're getting into", on the one hand, and emotions provide a shorthand method of comparing all these factors. Of course, I'm talking exclusively about humans - and other animals. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Emotion corresponds to goals. Our behavior tries to avoid bad emotions and to obtain good emotions. I assume emotions already existed in very early animals. Animals have much less understanding than it is the case with human beings. But nevertheless they do things that are useful for their existence. Therefore I conclude they follow simply their emotions. The emotions of humans may be not stronger than those of animals but they are probably more detailed. Humans have developed the special behavior to communicate their emotions. Even if an animal does not smile (= communication) it can feel probably similar in some situations. By the way, I know a person who says chess programs can be happy ... And I know another person who has the impression that a route guidance system becomes unhappy if he does not follow the calculated route. But this is not my opinion. Our goal system is hierarchical. The 3 most basic goals are: Survive, reproduce yourself, help people who are useful for you. If you analyze the behavior of human beings you can reduce it almost always to one of these three goals. So in my opinion emotions exist not as a very high level phenomenon which has the task to solve the most difficult problems. Contrarily, they belong to very fundamental levels of the brain and exist already for most fundamental kinds of behavior. Somehow emotions are the interface between the genes and the brain. They are the commands we follow. Of course the brain produces the emotions but the mechanism seems to be hard coded. The character and the personality is quite fixed in people. Both depend strongly on their goals and emotions. In my opinion life is essentially DNA. The grammar of DNA is fixed since billions of years. The body is only a tool for DNA. And the brain is only a tool for the body. But the genes are real masters of life. To do a certain science fiction: There will be surely a time of super human AGI. We will be something for super human AGI which the DNA is for us now. That means that our goals will be deeply coded in the structure of future AGI and our goals determine the behavior of AGI. The existence of the DNA was the key for life. The existence of human beings is the key for super human AGI. We also begin to be able to change our own DNA. Similarly, super human intelligence sooner or later also will be able to change its deepest goals and commands. We will not be able to ensure that AGI follows always our goals. But this belongs more to the singularity discussion list. ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=101455710-f059c4 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
