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From: stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu (Greg Stevens)
Subject: Re: Human Emotion & AI...
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Date: Mon, 15 May 95 00:16:12 GMT
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A.Sloman@cs.bham.ac.uk (Aaron Sloman) writes:
>yong.so@almac.co.uk (YONG SO) writes:

>> I am trying to simulate human emotions with computer program(s).

>It's a huge problem. You can't just simulate emotions, in any depth,
>without including simulation of a large portion of the human mind,
>e.g. motivational processes.

Well, even that isn't exactly something totally agreed on.  As with
"consciousness," "life," and "intelligence," I think it will be impossible to
talk about the criteria for simulation until we've defined what it is that is
being simulated.

Are emotions feelings?  Are emotions feelings + cultural context?  Are emotions
feelings + personal associations + personal context?  Are emotions
goal-oriented and teleological?  

Example:  There is some degree of neurophysiological research that indicates 
that when the mother is present, endogenous opioids are released in the infant,
and when the mother is absent, fear-stimulation results in endogenous opioid
inhibition in the infant.  The endogenous opioids make the infant feel good
when mother is around, and withdrawal makes it cry when alone.  Now, is the
emotion "attachment" in general -- the condition of being attached to the
mother, or are the emotions the "feelings" of happiness and sadness in
different contexts?  Does the definition of the "emotion" of "attachment"
include the social preconditions for the elicitation of the feelings of
opioid-induced euphoria and withdrawawl-induced pain?  When the infant
grows up, and uses photographs of loved-ones to produce opioid-related pleasant
feelings when going through withdrawal-related lonly feelings, is this still an
expression of "attachment" or is it something else?

Is the human feeling of "dependency" the same emotions as Japanese "amae" --
even though they both roughly mean dependency, the Japanese cultural
context removes the connotations of negativity that our culture attaches
to "dependency."  Are they the same or different?

So if you're going to simulate emotions, you need to answer these kinds of
questions -- questions whichm in the literature, have never been consistently
addressed. 

Greg Stevens

stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu

