X-Message-Number: 12568
From: "John de Rivaz" <>
References: <>
Subject: Re: emotions and intelligence
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 12:12:44 +0100

It seems to me that emotions could be regarded as interrupts - pieces of
program that take precedence in certain circumstances. People may say
"emotionally I would suggest doing A, but logically B would really be
better."

The recent debate on autopsies on the newsgroups is an example. Emotionally,
cryonics people like the idea of introducing some form of vengeance against
pathologists and coroners who cut people to pieces rather than allowing
their bodies to be cryopreserved. But logic suggests that introducing such
systems, possibly with the aid of criminals, would be counter productive in
the actual goal - i.e. to get as many people cryopreserved as possible.

Creatures that work on emotion alone are indeed much more common than
creatures that reason. One could say that a simple thermostat with a
bimetallic strip that turns something on or off is displaying primitive
emotion, whereas an elaborate one running windows CE (as recently suggested
by Bill Gates), having its own website that can react to its owners emails
and weather reports and so on could be said to be intelligent. But both, of
course, are *mere* machines.

Drugs can indeed make the emotional interrupts cut in at different times,
but cannot alter the processing ability that surrounds more detailed
interactions. I suspect that the smart drugs actually just improve the
chemical environment of the brain rather than its actual function.

--
Sincerely, John de Rivaz
my homepage links to Longevity Report, Fractal Report, my singles club for
people in Cornwall, music, Inventors' report, an autobio and various other
projects:       http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JohndeR

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