[ExI] The point of emotions

[M1N3R]

An interesting topic. I just have to add something to it. I've seen several most astonishing thoughts about this. The feeling process in us, if I may call it that, is due to very complex phenomena in our brain and all through the body. Be it chemical or electrical in nature. (Next year I'll learn a lot more about some of them...) If you think of it like that, it is just a mass of currents running through the body, quite chaotic. To understand these would mean a new beginning in science, quite evidently. Now, to build them into computers seems dubious to me. Would it really be beneficial? As for humans, I consider emotions an inseparable part of our self and seen from this angle it is not a chaos but a mass of currents which direct us right into the unknown (quite philosophic, yuck). For example, love just grabs one by the throat and turns them over. Should a computer be exposed to that? Or how about depression? These are mostly due to the presence or absence of certain chemicals in the brain (and body), as I gather. (Though you can control emotions and thus the amount of these chems through rational thought...I could say so much about that :D) Now, provided we get to know the exact nature of feelings in our system, how would that be simulated? Because if I think of a silicon or whatever computer, I just can't think of anything other than pure simulation. Would that be the same? I think such a computer is of less use than the effort put into making it. And yet somehow human thought, however rational, always has a certain emotional background to it (if we want humanlike AI). After so much talk I come back to my beloved future model, collective consciousness. If plausible, aided by a certain intelligence enhancement, wouldn't that be the best solution (to become posthuman but still remain human in nature)? Please comment on that, I'd be so interested to hear your opinion.

Thomas Pardy
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