[From Bill Powers (961015.1315 MDT)]
Bruce Abbott (961015.1230 EST --
[your proposal] will require adding a whole new
hierarchical model in parallel with the one we now have, complete with
perceptual functions, comparators, and output functions at every level.
In your previous post you stated that you agreed with me that it would not.
If I suggested that I didn't mean to. Consider a case where you have drawn
to an inside straight (23-56)after betting more money than you actually
have, in a game run by the Mafia. You draw a queen. Your emotion, I might
guess, is one of terror as you imagine the consequences.
Now what would your built-in emotion system have to be able to do in order
to generate the appropriate emotion in this case? First, it would have to
perceive what an inside straight is, and compare the card you drew with the
required card. In order to perceive that, the emotion system would have to
recognize numbers, which requires recognizing shapes, which requires
recognizing sensations, etc. It would have to have all these levels of
perception as they relate specifically to card games, in addition to
perceptions of higher-level considerations such as customs and rules, and
the behavior that is expected at a gambling table. It would have to
understand that the opponents in the game are likely to retaliate for your
welshing on the debt, and know that the retaliation would take unpleasant
forms. It would have to imagine the consequences, and adjust the machinery
to take an appropriate action like fleeing. And it would have to understand
the spatial relations involved, so it could determine the direction of
movement that would constitute fleeing, and connect that goal to the right
reference signals in the learned hierarchy to cause locomotion to the right
degree and in the right direction.
And this would all have to be done by an inherited system! I truly don't see
how this would be possible. Can you suggest any other way it could happen?
Best,
Bill P.