Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!husc6!spdcc!merk!xylogics!linus!mbunix!bwk
From: bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Kort)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: the role of 'emotional'/goal directed components in understanding
Summary: If computers could learn, would they experience emotions?
Keywords: Learning Systems, Emotions
Message-ID: <83365@linus.UUCP>
Date: 16 Dec 89 14:25:00 GMT
References: <3312@hub.UUCP> <10998@venera.isi.edu>
Sender: news@linus.UUCP
Reply-To: bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry Kort)
Organization: The MITRE Corp. Bedford, MA
Lines: 32

In article <3312@hub.UUCP> silber@voodoo.ucsb.edu writes:

 > It occurs to me, with respect to discussions about cognitive competence,
 > to reflect on the necessary role of emotional components in all aspects
 > of human cognition.  Perhaps a Von-Neumann strong-ai machine/program of
 > the traditional kind can never instantiate 'consciousness', not because
 > it is computationally incompetent, BUT because it is emotionally
 > incompetent????

It is my thesis that a learning system necessarily exhibits emotional
behavior.  As a scientist, I frequently experience the emotions of
curiosity, puzzlement, frustration, boredom, exhilaration, anxiety,
confidence, and satisfaction as I explore, ponder, get stuck, make
progress, develop understanding and gain insight into the systems that
I study.

It occurs to me that any learning system must experience such states,
and alter its goals and strategies accordingly.  Metaphorically
speaking, emotions are the first derivative of the learning curve:

	E = dK/dt   where E = Emotional State and K(t) = Knowledge.

I once wrote a pair of whimsical Socratic dialogues between a
pair of anthropomorphic self-programming computers to illustrate
this idea.  If you are interested, I would be happy to share
them with you.

I nice feature of this theory is that it tells me what to do
with my emotions:  Emotions tell me what I (and others) need to
learn next in life.

--Barry Kort