"emotion is a social communication channel that makes it possible to understand another’s mental states. Without a true sense of separation of self and other, the necessary mental models for self-awareness can’t be developed
"Here’s an interesting progression: human beings, like most mammals, initially communicated via emotional interaction. These emotions became increasingly nuanced as we acquired consciousness, empathy, and a true sense of other. Then came gestures and other non- and preverbal channels. Eventually, language developed, becoming increasingly formalized in its oral form, followed by written language, which could be structured still more formally. Finally, and only much, much later, did deeply abstract thinking and the symbols used in mathematics, logic, and science come to represent ideas and concepts in their purest, most precisely defined for
"Our minds would
also no longer be just three pounds of naturally evolved neural tissue, but a blend of biological and digital systems that might actually have a better chance of being a valued partner in this meeting of minds.
"One major difference between natural and technological evolution is intention. Biological evolution is the product of natural selection, mutation, and other forces that are bound by the fact there is nothing guiding them. They simply happen and it is our retrospectively good fortune they coalesced to bring about Homo sapiens. This was neither directed, nor is it a culmination. We are not an endpoint, but rather a way station on the path to something else
AI scientist Ben Goertzel sets out to develop a theory of general intelligence in which (in the most basic terms) sequences of world-states get mapped onto sequences of mind-states in the course of an intelligence’s development.18 In so many ways, thi
s is exactly how our mind matures from the day we’re born. All of the elements of our world—physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and cultural—are mapped onto our growing minds, generating a rich internal reality that is specifically tuned to our external ones.
"P-consciousness must by its definition be a two-way street. In order to experience phenomena, the phenomena must first be available to that mind. Without phenomenal consciousness—without emotion or the ability to experience and interpret the world, a
world, any world—where does that leave anyone, any animal, any intelligence?
"Consider the stories of feral children, such as Kasper Hauser and Victor of Aveyron, those tragic victims of evil or unforgiving circumstance, who grew up absent any normal social influence. These children were stunted to such a degree that they never fully recovered or integrated socially. Nevertheless, does anyone doubt these children were P-conscious, capable of experiencing and appreciating the world through their senses? While their appreciation may have lacked certain depth and nuance due to an absence of cultural context, we can hardly deny them the redness of a rose.
"Natural selection needs mutation to drive it.14 In nature, mutation occurs at a relatively stable rate, but this needn’t be the case for a technological intelligence. In evolutionary computation, algorithms based on Darwinian principles are used. Applying reproduction, mutation, recombination, and fitness selection, these methods are used to find solutions and optimizations to problems"
"The majority of species in the animal world lack such consciousness in the sense that few of them are truly self-aware. But volition, will, and even various degrees of self-determination exist across a wide range of animal intelligences. Such behavior is far from being purely deterministic and is ultimately down to the whims of the animal
"Elliot was, his emotional and inner self, was lost because a tumor and the operation to remove it destroyed a region of his brain that was critical to those functions. Essentially, we can reasonably say his A-consciousness was still intact, in that he still had access to most of the knowledge and expertise he had prior to the tumor and the operation. But a significant part of Elliot’s P-consciousness no longer functioned in the aftermath. He might have recognized the color red in a sunset, but it could no longer trigger emotional responses, associations, and value assignments. Though some part of his ability for self-reflection may have remained (not least because his brain had already matured), it’s evident from Damasio’s research that much of this was lost to Elliot forever
"As I see it, qualia, and by extension phenomenal consciousness, exists to some degree for any animal that can experience the world beyond the most neurochemical survival-perpetuating responses of fight-or-flight, food, sleep, and sex. A dog, for instance, may not experience the redness of a rose (dogs being dichromats with only yellow- and blue-sensitive photoreceptors in their retinas), but they certainly have a range of very emotional responses to moments such as the sound of their master’s voice, the sniff of another dog’s butt, the sight of a squirrel. This to my mind indicates qualia.
Though emotion isn’t entirely essential to qualia, it gives it a depth of experience it wouldn’t have otherwise, first physically and later more cognitively
No comments:
Post a Comment