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To: Phaedrus
We are emotional beings and I don't think that aspect of our selves, which is markedly evident in all of us at all waking moments, can be derived from or even simulated by mathematics, and I don't believe that emotions are a chemical byproduct irrespective of the fact that chemical interation may be crucial to the expression of emotion.

To drop a quick logic bomb here, any process, pattern, or thing that can be measured or discerned (like emotions) is expressible ex machina by definition, and Solomonoff induction provides the mechanism by which any such model can be created. To put it another way, there is no measurable property of the human system that is not reducible to finite state machinery. Emotions in particular aren't all that inexplicable or mysterious anyway (at least to me).

On a somewhat related note, there are some good arguments (which I don't have time to make) that emotions are a biological necessity for higher animals from a very low-level function standpoint. In other words, emotions are very likely a functional adaptation in biology that precede higher level intelligence.

947 posted on 12/11/2003 12:14:37 PM PST by tortoise (All these moments lost in time, like tears in the rain.)
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To: tortoise
Very little learning takes place in animals without an emotional component. It doesn't have to be a strong, gut wrenching emotion, but it needs some measure of pleasure or pain to form a lasting association.
948 posted on 12/11/2003 12:20:50 PM PST by js1138
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To: tortoise
To drop a quick logic bomb here, any process, pattern, or thing that can be measured or discerned (like emotions) is expressible ex machina by definition, and Solomonoff induction provides the mechanism by which any such model can be created. To put it another way, there is no measurable property of the human system that is not reducible to finite state machinery. Emotions in particular aren't all that inexplicable or mysterious anyway (at least to me).

On a somewhat related note, there are some good arguments (which I don't have time to make) that emotions are a biological necessity for higher animals from a very low-level function standpoint. In other words, emotions are very likely a functional adaptation in biology that precede higher level intelligence.

My inclination is to say "well and good" as far as it goes. I believe that there is a meaningful intangible realm, the evidence for which is found in physics, and that to the extent this is true, mathematics will, I think, experience some difficulty describing it. Free Will is an apparent and abundant reality and that may as well prove problematic. But the proof is in the pudding, so to speak, and you/we should explore whatever avenues seem open to us. For myself, I don't believe that real scientific progress will be made until the reality of the realm of the mind is acknowledged as wholly intangible and we act accordingly.

957 posted on 12/11/2003 1:19:25 PM PST by Phaedrus
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To: tortoise; Phaedrus
To drop a quick logic bomb here, any process, pattern, or thing that can be measured or discerned (like emotions) is expressible ex machina by definition, and Solomonoff induction provides the mechanism by which any such model can be created. To put it another way, there is no measurable property of the human system that is not reducible to finite state machinery.

How would you know, tortoise?

990 posted on 12/11/2003 3:23:19 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
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