You are accusing me of saying something I didn't. I did not say emotions are useless (in actual fact, I've been asserting directly the opposite thus far, if you would care to read the other stuff I've written - however, in a somewhat different context). I do, however, say that we can not say they are either necessary or a precondition for a successful biological organism - let alone a robot. We observe emotions and their effects and that they are a result of the workings of the biological components of the human organism, is all. And yes, emotions could be essentially a byproduct that is not harmful, or vestigial, or something else. One thing is for sure - they are completely accidental.
What emotions consist of in animals, or if they even have them in a meaningful sense, is BTW the a thorny problem with a long history for biology/psychology. If you think you have "the answer" to that, either yourself or from someone... you are wrong, think again.
Your short exposition above demonstrates that you believe a whole raft of things to be true that you can't prove. Like I said, go read all your Dawkins again.
In the particular case of a robot and "emotions" what an examination of humans and evolution tells us is that, if we decide it's appropriate, we have to program "emotions" into the robot. Further, to do that successfully - or even to decide if it's a good idea in the first place! - we would have to understand a whole lot about the role of emotions in the systems functioning of a single human and as a social animal that, I assert, we certainly don't understand now.
Actually, it's even worse than you thus far imagine: not only do we not know how the human mind works, we can't even be sure they all work in substantially the same way. The human brain is the single most complex integrated system in the known Universe. Every brain is profoundly unique, a landscape of cells that has never existed before and never will again. And there is quite possibly a lot more to the human mind than simply the brain. We don't even know if we are actually smart enough to understand the workings of the human mind!
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2009-04-21 04:31 pm (UTC)What emotions consist of in animals, or if they even have them in a meaningful sense, is BTW the a thorny problem with a long history for biology/psychology. If you think you have "the answer" to that, either yourself or from someone... you are wrong, think again.
Your short exposition above demonstrates that you believe a whole raft of things to be true that you can't prove. Like I said, go read all your Dawkins again.
In the particular case of a robot and "emotions" what an examination of humans and evolution tells us is that, if we decide it's appropriate, we have to program "emotions" into the robot. Further, to do that successfully - or even to decide if it's a good idea in the first place! - we would have to understand a whole lot about the role of emotions in the systems functioning of a single human and as a social animal that, I assert, we certainly don't understand now.
Actually, it's even worse than you thus far imagine: not only do we not know how the human mind works, we can't even be sure they all work in substantially the same way. The human brain is the single most complex integrated system in the known Universe. Every brain is profoundly unique, a landscape of cells that has never existed before and never will again. And there is quite possibly a lot more to the human mind than simply the brain. We don't even know if we are actually smart enough to understand the workings of the human mind!