iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

But I’ve seen other papers also use appraisal = conceptualization/interpretation of interoceptive sensations. And clearly our interpretations of emotions can also be appraised and generate other emotions (eg, being frustrated that you are sad), so there’s lots of circular inference and overlap

to how that term has been used in causal appraisal theories of emotion, where this means evaluation of one’s situation in the world along various dimensions (goal congruency, value consistency, etc) and that generate affective responses accordingly (ie, before they could be felt and interpreted).

120

Ya, that’s more or less exactly what I think. There’s jargon issues though. In papers with Richard we always talked about mapping body state representations to concepts (eg, interpreting heart palpitations as a feeling of panic or symptom of a heart attack). We tried to keep “appraisal” restricted..

120

Agreed. The video examples are super interesting. I wish the questions were asked in a more controlled way, but I can’t fault for some limitations of this rarely possible type of work. It seemed quite somatic and abrupt. No spontaneous descriptions of emotion proper either. Only when given a word.

020

But I suppose I should be clear that interception task performance does still seem affected in multiple disorders. So it is likely still relevant to psychopathology, even if not via direct impact on emotion itself.

210

I’ll be interested to see what you have in mind. I’m also skeptical that detection accuracy for things like heartbeats has much to do with emotion. But I think feeling the sensation of a racing heart or other internal sensations and interpreting their meaning is strongly linked to emotion.

170

Sure, that all seems reasonable. I think it wouldn’t be stable unless the right regularities are present between actions and observations (esp in development). But barring that, I guess I’m just prone to generalize because I can’t see why some experiences should be privileged over others

010

for psychology anything like we would find intuitive. But if you have any arguments you find convincing re brain stim induced experience, phantom limb etc that would still make an actual biological body necessary I’m all ears. The material just feels arbitrary, other than actual chem properties

120

Haha. Ya, for whatever reason I have the other bias. Like things like phantom limb, hallucinations, the ability to induce experiences with direct stimulation of the brain, etc etc, just convince me that the actual cause of a signal isn’t required. But I think the *as if* part is probably crucial…

100

then we’re back to something about having the right computational architecture to control a body like ours in the way we do.

Well I think one argument could start from a standard brain-in-a-vat (or matrix-style) premise. We know empirically that stimulating the brain or nerve inputs directly is sufficient to induce experience. So it follows that the brain only needs input signals *as if* it has a body. And if that’s true

100

computational (relation to inference, predictive control, etc.) leads me right back to some form of functionalism.

100

After all, there’s lots of carbon-based structures we definitely don’t think have mental properties. So then it needs to be about structure and dynamics, and the relevant structure and dynamics could (in principle) be realized by non-carbon systems. That + the clear relation between mental and…

100

So then I think we’re right back to having the right computational architecture needed for independently controlling and maintaining a body and that assigns high value to doing so. Otherwise it seems like the argument is for some kind of “carbon essentialism”, which feels unmotivated.

100

It will have to maintain optimal energy levels, temperature levels, etc. to keep itself functioning just like any evolved system. This would benefit from having a generative model of those processes that predict future changes in those levels, supporting internal planning, and so forth.

100

Sorry, I missed a couple of the posts above before sending those last 2 messages. I’m with you on much of that. But I think what “alive” means becomes the main thing. I think the second you build a robot that’s self-maintaining, you have clear starting points for homeostasis, for example.

220

if those are the basic options on the table, I think there’s clear reasons (at least convincing to me) that some type of functionalism is most plausible to bet on.

100

Those are both naturalistic positions, which I’m scientifically committed to. But then there’s panpsychist views (all matter has some kind of mental aspect, even single particles) and dualist positions (mind is not implemented by physical stuff). I’m sure there’s others, and subtypes of each. But…

100

Sure. But we should also be clear about the options. There’s functionalism (mental phenomena are specific types of computations), which I’m advocating. There’s biological identity positions (mind requires implementation with lipids, proteins, etc., above and beyond the computations they implement).

100

These are just examples of clues to follow. All I’m saying is that we know some control architecture exists that has the right properties. It’s just a current puzzle to figure out what the necessary and sufficient conditions are for it.

100

scenarios and use that in model-based planning. Embodiment would ground multiple dynamically evolving needs to continuously track and prioritize to maintain long-run homeostasis. We know it’s a limited capacity system with serial processes, somehow attached to a massively parallel system, etc.

For example, it seems reasonable to expect the system will encode a generative model of its environment, including its body, reflecting multiple temporal scales that allow for retrospection and prospective control. It would likely require the capacity for internal simulation of counterfactual…

100

If we’re talking about extant artificial systems I agree. At the same time, the brain has a physical control architecture, which we know does feel. We just need to figure out what that architecture is. I think there are plenty of clues to work from, with much more than simple value signals.

I think it depends what you mean by ‘robot’. If you define it as having the ‘wrong’ kind of control system then the argument they don’t feel goes through by assumption. For me, the question comes down to what the right control architecture is.

Ya, I think it’s consistent. Strong positive valence is also prioritizing allocation of cognitive resources on that person. Where that prioritization comes from could be innate or learned. Positive valence seems more about approaching/maintaining states, while negative about avoiding/removing.

I’m sympathetic to the idea of it guiding simulation in a model-based setting under uncertainty. But I’m skeptical of valence per se as a model-free learning signal, in part bc punishment-based conditioning appears to be possible without awareness.

100

I see what you mean for sure. My first thought would be a prioritization function of some kind. “Even though I highly value x in general, right now motivation needs to be directed toward y”. So degree of valence reflects degree of current priority to deal with y instead of x.

130

other aspects of emotion could be experienced through this same sort of general mechanism. In other words, they don’t just motivate reflexive approach/avoidance. They guide internal simulation and planning about what would happen if I did this or that and assign value to different imagined outcomes

I tend to have sympathies toward neural models of explicit vs implicit perception in which a stimulus leads to an explicit (reportable) percept when its representation is made accessible to deep temporal offline planning where we can simulate the world as different than it currently is. Valence and

don’t need to be thought of as special or categorically different than any of the other standard topics studied in psychology and neuroscience. But the goodness/badness part does differentiate them and plays a crucial role in directing attention and internal planning processes in specific ways.

So I guess part of my point was that emotions can be thought of as largely decomposable into a particular set of interactions between other ‘standard’ systems being studied, such as perception, viscero-/skeleto-motor control, semantic memory, working memory (etc.). So emotions

actual answer here. I’m just trying to highlight what an answer might look like that puts to the side some of the harder, more general philosophy of mind issues.

010

any other perception - which could be because it is integrated with and motivates long timescale internal simulation processes in a particular way (eg, where should I go to make this pain stop? What would likely happen if I take this sequence of actions vs. that one?, etc.). I’m not saying I have an

200

information is integrated into a deep temporal level of representation that allows it to be gated into working memory and used in prospective planning processes that require simulating counterfactuals. There are many views here, but my bet would be that we feel pain for the same reason we experience

100

So I guess I’d just want to avoid ‘hard problem of consciousness’ questions. Bc we can just as easily ask why we experience color, temperature (etc), as opposed to experience-less mechanisms. But you can ask what differentiates felt/unfelt sensations in the brain, which mainly appears to be whether