X-Message-Number: 15940
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 08:33:23 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: emotions and knowledge

Hi everyone!

I was recently asked 2 questions on Cryonet: 

1. Why must a computer have emotions at all? Basically whenver we have
   the ability to know, we will also have things we WANT TO know, and
   others we do not. It is that want that comes from our emotional 
   nature. Sure, a robot can do all kinds of things, but unless it
   has wishes of its own it will do nothing at all unless requested.

   By emotions I mean here not just intense emotions but others, too.
   Sure, a computer could do all the things we imagine, but unless it
   somehow WANTS to do them it will do nothing. And when we come to
   exact questions, the wants become more exact also.

   I am particularly aware of this connection because I was originally
   a mathematician, and mathematics, unlike other sciences, makes this
   relationship between what we want and the theorems we prove. Basically
   the same relation exists in other sciences, but it's confused by 
   experiments etc. We do not want to simply prove TRUE theorems, we
   want to prove theorems that will interest ourselves and others ...
   and there come the emotions.

2. Why are feelings understood better than knowledge? This is a complex
   question, and I really wish that you'd been a subscriber to 
   PERIASTRON. That is one way to learn the complexity  of both and their
   interrelations. However, here is the author and title of a book
   you might read, which might help you see the relation:

	J LeDoux THE EMOTIONAL BRAIN

   along the way it will become clear that we do understand emotions
   better than we understand cognition. But remember that I did not say
   that we UNDERSTOOD emotions, we just understand them better than 
   we do knowledge.

		Best wishes and long long life to all,

			Thomas Donaldson

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