Could we ever replicate emotion?

[golightly]

I disagree.

Once upon a time I watched an old Cary Grant movie, in which he was a master theif. He knew exactly what to do do and when to move, because he could say that 'direct this man's attention to this pretty lady there, and wait for this man to be so tired that he will yawn and turn away, direct this woman's view towards something unexpected moving to the right of her peripheral vision, and you can steal this object.' Or somesuch.

It read false to me. What if the man was gay, what if the other man had taken stimulants, what if the woman didn't have peripheral vision, or was used to not paying attention to it? What if the people you were relying to react predictably were emotionally or mentally disturbed (temporarily or permanently), and didn't react in the expected way? The chance of getting caught is pretty high.

I guess that if you knew someone's internal world completely, then you could predict their behaviour.

But nobody ever knows anyone's internal world completely. Even if someone had the power of telepathy, they wouldn't know the other person's world perfectly, because they'd be viewing through their own internal world.


Weltweit - I guess, if we could send a robot of some form to far planets, and wanted it to be as much like us as possible, but without the possibility of dying due to the time constraints, then we might want a robot that could replicate humans wholly, including emotions. Or if the human race were dying out and we took one last chance at a different kind of evolution.

I'm not sure that using a fictional account proves one thing or another. It's curious that predicting people's emotional reactions should be regarded as such a difficult act when we do it all the time. We could not function socially if we were not able to predict someone's emotional response to a situation. Ok, I accept that we do get it wrong from time to time, but if you think about it we more often than not get it right.

 

[scifisam]

I'm not sure that using a fictional account proves one thing or another. It's curious that predicting people's emotional reactions should be regarded as such a difficult act when we do it all the time. We could not function socially if we were not able to predict someone's emotional response to a situation. Ok, I accept that we do get it wrong from time to time, but if you think about it we more often than not get it right.

Of course the fictional account doesn't prove anything. The fictional account actually said that all emotions and acts are predictable, so I'm not going to use it prove my opinion that many emotions and actions aren't predictable.

I agree with you that we can very often predict what an emotional reaction will be, but I think that the number of times people guage reactions wrongly is significant enough to make people relatively unpredictable. Plus, I guess we'll never truly know someone's emotional reactions to something, because not all emotions have outward signs.

 

[spring-peeper]

So are we when listening to my car's GPS, especially when in an unknown city.



You should hear my female GPS. I'm still laughing with her panical reaction this morning when she begged repeatedly to stop and turn around. She then gave up begging and died, only to miraculously resurrect (it is easter, I'm in Europe... so nothing weird there) shortly thereafter. Confusing the driver all over again with strange instructions.
Listening to a GPS is often one of my favourite pass-times.

salaam

I'm still a newbie at this technology, but we have this service as well. In addition to the pleasure of enjoying messing with pure entertainment, try switching languages on it.

(btw - canada - all services must be in both official languages. how many official languages where you are?)

 

[golightly]

I agree with you that we can very often predict what an emotional reaction will be, but I think that the number of times people guage reactions wrongly is significant enough to make people relatively unpredictable. Plus, I guess we'll never truly know someone's emotional reactions to something, because not all emotions have outward signs.

Seems like we're arguing about matters of degree here. My experience is that people are generally pretty good at guaging each other's likely emotional reaction to things, but I accept that interpretation is open to challenge as I've got nothing to back it up. Personally, I'm pretty socially inept and often miss emotional cues, but that's probably because in my own head a bit too much. In any case I'm aware that a lot of people are better at it than me. What we're describing is essentially empathy isn't it.

With regard to having no outward signs of emotions I think it's very hard to not show emotional reactions in one way or another, and people do pick up the smallest change in posture or tone of voice. Just think about the work you need to do to hide that you're angry while saying "No, no. It's fine" in a light and airy voice. Behavourists would say that there are no internal states and all emotions are just behaviour which are open external examination. BF Skinner once described thinking as sub-vocal vibrations of the larynx for instance. I don't subscribe to this view as it denies our own experiences.

 

[Aldebaran]

I'm still a newbie at this technology, but we have this service as well. In addition to the pleasure of enjoying messing with pure entertainment, try switching languages on it.

(btw - canada - all services must be in both official languages. how many official languages where you are?)

It is even more fun if you *know* where you are. Only by following your GPS to go from A to B, you can enjoy a sight-seeing of locations you don't even know they exist in cities you thought to know by heart.
As far as I know language options depend of the brand and type of the device. I think the one we use right now has 4 or 5.

I wonder why every GPS I ever heard sounds "female".
Maybe because of the idea that this anticipates on the macho-reaction of male drivers on a "man" given them instructions and prevents feminist-tinted reactions with female drivers

salaam

 

[subversplat]

Could we ever replicate emotion?

Why would we ever want to?

We can already replicate lots of little humans who feel emotion, it is called child rearing. We can make as many as we want and current global human populations seem to suggest we want a lot of them.

Why would we want to try to make a thing assembled out of peices of metal and electronics behave like a child?

What purpose would that serve?

Hippie.

It'd be fun, that's why.

 

[weltweit]

Hippie.

It'd be fun, that's why.

Fun . hah everybody knows engineers and technicians can have trouble relating to the opposite sex, thats the reason they want to make machines that can *LOVE THEM* ..

its all a dirty perversion I tell you.

Its possible to make machines that love you, the starting point is called sex, preferrably with another person, never with a machine that would just be wrong, incompatible obviously, then the seeds are set in motion and soon enough, though not soon enough obviously for engineers or technicians, a new emotion feeling mini machine is created, a super self growing, self healing, self regulating gurgling, little baby type machine .. everybody say *CUTE*

Mechanical and electrical engineers are trying to compete with biologists .. its lunacy I tell you .. where will it all end? robots that can mate and produce more robots while emotionally bonding with their offspring

...

Two male engineering students were walking across campus when one said, "Where did you get such a great bike?" The second replied, "Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take what you want." The second engineer nodded approvingly, "Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn't have fit."

...

Engineers should stick to what they know, making Vincent Black Shadows and Harley Davidsons, machines that have *SOUL*

 

[golightly]

I know this concept has been explored before, but if a machine were created that was conscious it's ways of thinking could be quite alien to us and, I suspect, it's emotional reactions could be quite alien too. It's quite possible we could have difficulties understanding each other.