[ExI] The point of emotions

[Stathis Papaioannou]

2008/4/25 Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com>:

>  Do you have some idea of what the body is telling the
>  brain via this chemistry instead of through nerve
>  connections? Also, I don't see the point evolutionarily:
>  just what kind of thinking or feeling *ought* to be
>  a function of chemical "calculations" undertaken elsewhere
>  in the body?

Hormones are not directly involved in cognition, but are involved in
modulating the activity of neurons. For example, a deficit of
thyroxine can make a person slow, stupid, depressed or psychotic. If
you did have a brain in a vat, you would have to replicate the effects
of the endocrine system as well as the sensory inputs, and you would
have to simulate all this in a computer upload. It makes it more
difficult, but there's no reason why it couldn't in theory be done.




-- 
Stathis Papaioannou