Gee,Gee wrote:Greylorn Ell wrote: Gee,
Don't be absurd. No one can show you a thought of any kind.
Of course it is absurd. Sometimes, Greylorn, you have to read my post, the post that I am responding to, and then think about it. Arising likes to ask questions, probably trying to emulate Socrates, but often Arising is simply on a 'fishing expedition'. I decided to turn his question back on him.
Greylorn Ell wrote:And to address your question, "If they {emotions} are not 'consciousness', then what are they?", Nevermind that you are unlikely to challenge your opinions, emotions are a property of brains. Emotions are what motivate animal brains. Emotions give brains their motivations, and tell them how to react to various circumstances. Emotions are a brain's equivalent of a computer's programming.
I know that this is the crap that science and neurology want me to swallow, but I can't. Here is reality; ALL species have a survival instinct; all instincts are motivated by emotion; all species do not have brains; therefore, emotions are not a property of brains. Emotions are a property of life.
I am going to be frank here. If indeed you programmed fear and hunger into a machine, then you programmed qualia into a machine -- qualia is experience, feeling, and emotion. If you did this, then you would not be typing in this forum, because you would be too busy giving lectures and writing books and signing autographs. I am not buying your interpretation of what you think you did.Greylorn Ell wrote:My instruments, mostly telescopes, were motivated to point themselves at astronomical objects and record intensity and wavelengths of light emitted from those objects. They were also motivated to protect themselves from damage. The one in orbit needed to close itself down when close to the sun. The one on land needed to shut down in daytime and in the presence of rain. In effect, I programmed these machines to fear bright lights and precipitation. Fear is an emotion. It is a sensible emotion, directing a machine or critter to behave in such a manner as to secure its survival.
None of the machines I programmed had the ability to reproduce itself, so I did not program them with the desire to get laid. Their power supply had been provided by external sources beyond their control, so I did not program them to obtain energy, or to "feed." Robots running on batteries, on the ground, must obtain energy to survive, and therefore some of them have been programmed to feed by inserting their mandibles into power outlets, or by adjusting their solar-energy arrays to optimal sun angles. They've been programmed to know when they are hungry, and to relieve their hunger. Emotion, coded into machines.
Gee
Reading is a tricky process, and sometimes, as a function of mood/interest/focus or something else, very intelligent people miss things. For example, you complained about the lack of reference material in my book after missing the instructions on page 11 for obtaining references in a convenient manner via the internet.
To be equally frank, the "qualia" notion has yet to make it as a viable concept for me. It is too vague.
A single word that encompasses the diverse notions of "experience, feeling, and emotion" is way too broad to be useful in an intelligent conversation. "Qualia" strikes me as a bullshit word invented by pseudo-intellectuals to mask their dreadful ignorance.
As for my comments about my small technological accomplishments, I did what I did, without seeing a broader perspective. I was a young man, writing code to control machines, fairly good at what I did but working to support a wife and offspring by getting a job done, from a narrow and family oriented perspective. The ideas that I promote today were useful to me, and I had a vague notion that they might have a use to others. I wrote five manuscripts during this period of work and family support; all were rejected, until I turned to fiction in the seventies. During those early years I became quite discouraged about the value of my unappreciated ideas.
By way of perspective example, about ten years ago after a new wife introduced me to the internet I used it to look up "virtual memory," a term I'd often heard but knew nothing about. Figured that it was some complex modern concept invented after my early education and work experience. Like most people, I fear learning new concepts. They might (and sometimes do) challenge my beliefs. A greater fear is that I might not understand them. But upon learning what "virtual memory" was, I realized that I'd invented it, back in 1966. Had I or the professors for whom I worked had any notion that this unique implementation of hard-drive storage as an extension of a computer's memory was potentially patentable, the university that employed me would have made millions of dollars to spend on the salaries of stupid, liberal-progressive perfessers, the head-of-project would have taken credit, and my life would be exactly as it is.
RE: your earlier points:
1. Please don't expect me or anyone else to comprehend your communication subtleties, particularly regarding communications with AUK, an irrelevant nit whose handle might be derived from morning erection problems. If you want to swim in a pond where fools are fishing, go ahead. That pond is too polluted for me.
2. I agree with you that emotions are a property of life. Life is machinery. I tried to explain that, but you seem to be so totally wrapped up in the notion that emotions are in some way special or important, that you cannot see beyond your feelings that your own emotions are important. Well, they are, so long as you allow your potentially excellent mind to be driven by your brain's emotional programming. Stick with that and your emotions will rule your life.
Perhaps you could read my posts, as you expect me to read yours. Mine are easier. They are straight-up references to reality. Understanding them requires nothing more than objective intelligence. No feelings, no sense of social mores or interpersonal connections are required.
Consider allowing your life to be driven by beon, not the programmed brain that brought it to semi-consciousness. Like it or not, you are already doing that, else you would not engage difficult conversations. Thank you for being up front with your opinions and beliefs. I'm looking forward to a time when you might be equally up-front with unique ideas of your own.
Greylorn