Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cscs!csmith
From: csmith@cscs.UUCP (Craig E. Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Emergent Properties
Keywords: emergence consciousness computability
Message-ID: <1990Nov6.102107.8373@cscs.UUCP>
Date: 6 Nov 90 10:21:07 GMT
References: <1265@ucl-cs.uucp> <692@creatures.cs.vt.edu>
Organization: CS Computer Systems, Hudson, MA, USA
Lines: 63

In <692@creatures.cs.vt.edu> holliday@csgrad.cs.vt.edu (Glenn Holliday) writes:


>	Clearly, this works some of the times.  There are subsystems of the
>brain that do work that is very much like computation.  We can build
>computations that produce interesting behaviors which appear pretty similar
>to some behaviors of intelligent, conscious beings.  But ultimately, the
>models we build are approximations of the intellligence we study.
>	Please note -- I'm not arguing either that "It's spiritual so it's
>impossible" or "It's mechanistic so it's just a matter of time."  I'm
>arguing that we really don't have enough information yet to know whether
>the intelligent behaviors we want to emerge from AI can be modelled
>computationally.  A couple of empirical observations on both sides of the
>question.  People with specific expertise in these areas, I'd love to hear
>what you have to say.

I take the mechanistic view, but I am not sure it is only a matter of
time, because I am not sure just how complex the human brain actually
is, and what the limits of understanding are within the brain. There
is some possibility that the human brain is too complex to be fully
understood, and so could never accurately be modeled. 

By my definition, everything in the brain is computational, and the 
brain is a computer in the broad sense of the word, since its primary 
function is to compute, which is to store and process information. 

>2. Emotional life:  Our firmware, hormoneware and thought processes are at
>   their most entangled when emotional experiences emerge.  I have great
>   difficulty imagining how computational processes are going to give rise
>   to the actual experience of emotion.

I have no evidence, but I suspect that when we find out more about how
the brain works, we will find that the emotional systems are actually
fairly simple, especially when compared with areas of the brain that
allow for complicated perceptual information processing, and reasoning
abilities. Emotional responses are basic reactions that evolved in
animals to allow for certain requirements of existence. For instance, 
anger is a state brought about in order to prepare the organism for 
danger, by releasing adrenaline, increasing the heart rate, etc. in
preparation for a fight or a fast retreat. Love is a response designed
to attract mates to each other in order to perpetuate the species. The
effects of emotions on our mental and physical state is extensive, but
I suspect the underlying mechanism is actually relatively simple. I am
not sure we necessarily want to build emotions into machines, at least
not the same ones that people have, since any machine we build will
likely not have precisely the same needs that a person has. I doubt
that we will build robots that need a conventional sex drive, or 
conventional hunger. We might want them to hunger for electricity
to recharge their batteries when they run down, but we probably want
a robot to be a little more stable, and reliable than an emotional
person, at least for practical use. It might be an interesting experiment 
to create these responses in a robot, but without the correct hardware, 
and the need for reaction that goes with the response, the emotion would 
be meaningless.  You might make your desktop PC angry, but all it could 
do would be to curse at you, or just shut down, and this wouldn't really 
be very helpful.


-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
  If you want a picture of the future,  | Internet:     csmith@cscs.UUCP 
  imagine a boot stomping on a human    | UUCP:     ... uunet!cscs!csmith 
  face - forever.  - George Orwell      |---------------------------------