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From: sa209@utb.shv.hb.se (Claes Andersson)
Subject: Re: Emotions?
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Date: Wed, 21 Dec 1994 15:43:37 GMT
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In article <3d93od$mp@colossus.csl.mtu.edu> rjryba@mtu.edu (Russell J. Ryba) writes:


>I was just wondering, do emotions play any part in artificial life or is
>this more of an AI issue?  I know that instincts can be taught/simulated
>in AL but are emotions just a higher level form of instincts, sort of like
>using C instead of assembley or are they along the lines of particular
>definitions of life?  Has anyone evolved any things that show some sort of
>emotions, or are emotions only possible at higher levels of complexity?  Is
>this discussed in any books or papers or is it to philosphical for serious
>discusion?  Can anyone think of a model in which emotions would be feasible
>or even useful, assuming of course we can agree on what emotions are.  Well
>thanks ahead of time to all who reply.  

 If something artificially evolved have emotions it would be hard to 
notice since there are no obvious properties of emotions. Why there are 
emotions anyway? That's really a hard queston.. The answer could be that it 
allows us to act in certain ways, but wouldn't it be possible to create the 
same sort of reactions without going by the emotional level? Why do we have 
to have a self conciousness just to be able to cope with our environment 
when it would be possible just to tie the right stimuli to the right 
reactions? I don't think any one can claim to know why emotions are, but 
there can be guesses. Complexity emerges from something simple and perhaps 
emotions are the communication between what originally was discrete 
components. 


Claes Andersson. University of Bors. Sweden.

