Instinct, mood, emotion and philosophy . . .

Discussion of my works . . . Part 2

Last time I discussed:

  1. Rational Confinement
  2. Emotional Confinement
  3. Social Confinement

This time I discuss:

  1. Instinctual Processes
  2. Learning Processes
  3. Natural Morality
  4. Learned Morality
  5. Mood Resolution

Although this is only a brief discussion, the rationale behind topics 4 through 8 is more of an educational body of knowledge behind topics 1 through 3 - there is a slight disparity but as previously mentioned:

4. Instinctual Processes
When contemplating Instinctual Processes one has to ask a question: how reliable are decisions that are made via instinct?

I wont go into this too much as I am more interested in the thoughts of others here.

5. Learning Processes

I am sure Learning Processes are varied and many - again this is a topic that is open to debate as far as the optimal Learning Processes are concerned and: What should we be learning? Is probably an even bigger debate we could get into.

Regarding Learning Processes - I myself detail how the brain/mind deals with these. I then include other thoughts on what maybe optimal learning processes.

6. Natural Morality

Natural Morality as I am sure most people are already aware of is as follows:

Now while I do not necessarily accept it this way it is still an interesting topic with plenty of evidence to suggest that Natural Morality is very real.

7. Learned Morality

Learned Morality could also be called Moral Development and is partially defined as follows:

Learned Morality focuses on the morality that we learn from birth to death.

Morality is important when we consider how we should be treating one another and currently/probably is/should be used in economics, technological development et cetera. Politics could learn a few lessons here.

8. Mood Resolution

Resolution can be defined as follows:

The action of solving a problem or contentious matter. “the peaceful resolution of all disputes”. Source: Google

The idea here is not so much about mood regulation from drugs but rather how individual persons interact with each other and how those interactions leave the person in mood. I suggest that the way we treat each other is reflected in the individual mood and the social mood and these are indicators of whether or not a society is in good health.

The big question here is how to we go about solving problems associated with mood in a naturally effective way through our interactions and the interactions between other processes on my lists(whether they are currently listed or not).

Rational Confinement, Emotional Confinement and Social Confinement

These are metrics used to measure personal and societal satisfaction, health, efficiency and economic effectiveness et cetera. These three metrics have many uses and can be combined with technology to allow for speedy results via heuristics and other analytical methods.

Organization is key to making anything effectively implemented.

Happiness is key to keeping an implementation alive.


So as you can see - I am in early development of some of these principles - I appeal to anyone who would like to take part in discussion involved with any of these topics and I encourage people to develop their own philosophies based on any of these topics. I also hope that it stimulates thought toward other topics and I hope that it serves as a reminder that there is still a long way for humanity to go and much to do.

:smiley:

I see those somewhat akin to;
A. Hardware
B. Firmware
C. Software

How do you propose to measure them for either society or individuals?

@ James - As you say: Be careful of what you ask for.

:wink:

That is a good analogy - it caught me off guard initially but I can see it now.

Hardware - > Instinct
Firmware - > Mood
Software - > Emotion

That is a pretty good “one for one” analogy James.

Very good question - I should have known I would not have got that one past you.

:sunglasses:

A short answer to your question: pattern matching.

Now for a much longer answer:

Take into account that what I am about to write is straight off the top of my head and I try to make a habit of not memorizing too much so if there are any discrepancies I would like to apologize in advance - you are welcome to request for me to clear those up if they appear.

Now regarding measurement - I can tell you that it is only early days, especially with instinct, mood and emotion - but I have an idea that the best place to start would be at the level of society, much like you do in some of your examples.

I do not want to alarm anyone here - I can say that some pattern analysis already takes place - it seems unavoidable in a world full of fear. Current techniques are a little shortsighted but that is my opinion.

There would be a typical baseline developed over time among any activities that develop patterns - this would be apparent among your SAM Coops or similar structures but it is even easier with the current structure of global society.

To name a few activities in global society that develop patterns:

schooling - logistics - crime-rate - days off from work - crop yields - network patterns associated with news reports - weather patterns - sickness rates - mental health data - war - traffic data and much more.

These activities could then be placed into an ontology of activities along with their baseline and their interactive elements. This ontology would be used to define and help manage the analysis of interactions between the above activities using a pattern recognition engine to check for deviations from their baseline. The ontology becomes the pattern buffer so to speak. The ontology lives inside a “living data base” whereby the database can change “on the fly” using subtle deviations over time to update within specified limits. The pattern recognition engine is able to build the ontology to begin with. When anomalies are detected an alarm can be set off.

If it is something that can develop a pattern then it is able to be studied without invading privacy or corrupting any other ethical concern. It is alarming what is already happening and I would prefer this sort of thing to be known - it would be better for society if society is aware of the things that go on in the data centers, behind closed doors or how ever else you want to apply a term for it. Eventually privacy will be the least of our concerns if we don’t awaken to the mess developing right now.

This is not to say that all of this data is needed - generally crime rates are a good red flag. Once a red flag is detected then a secondary process can be put into place. If logistical operations are affected it could be due to weather or sickness among employees - first you would rule out weather and if weather is not a factor you could move on to sickness - sickness could be false data in which case if a flag is raised then employees could be requested to have a meeting that a psychologist is present at. Falling grades at school is another red flag for many things: domestic problems, death in the family, bullying, dietary habits et cetera - incidentally school grades and crime rates work well together.

Sifting out information at the level of an individual is a little more difficult - psychology only has so many tricks up its sleeve - biological monitoring is useful - there will be new methods that will be spurred on by the neurosciences - the thing to watch here is: invasion of privacy and other ethical concerns - but where there are patterns there are metrics.

Instincts have patterns associated with them as do moods and emotions - it is just a matter of determining these patterns and the metrics follow. Over time human and animal behavior develops typical patterns. Orbits in star systems have patterns. If it is moving it is likely to develop a pattern. The evolution of a pattern tends toward convergence too which is why we see some overlap in the sciences with similar mathematics being applied to more than one science. Even chaos systems have some form of pattern that develop - it is hard to say whether chaos even exists at the human level because that would infer complete disorder and confusion which even in this world of crazy people doesn’t really show itself.

Warning: Tech Talk
The type of pattern matching techniques I have come across are scarily simple and extremely effective - forget Artificial Neural Networks(ANN) and Convolutional Neural Networks(CNN) - they are slow, complicated and ineffective compared to the tech I have come across. It turns out to be easier than we once thought and soon a revolution is about to begin. Add that to the worlds social demise and guess what? People need to take notice now because ignorance will no longer be bliss and obviously rioting, protesting, boycotting and not supporting these things will not achieve a damn thing; that is for the sixties and things have seriously changed since then.

I like to consider the story of the perceptron, to give people an idea of how long these things have been around; “The perceptron algorithm was invented in 1957 at the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory by Frank Rosenblatt”. They are essentially still with us in a more complex form of the previously mentioned ANN’s and CNN’s. It turns out this year would be the sixtieth anniversary of the perceptrons inception.

Logic seems to be the easiest to measure mainly because logic has many defined patterns associated with it. But inevitably emotions have patterns like moods, they are just at a lower resolution. Anyhow we have mapped a significant portion of the neocortex which is probably the most powerful part of the brain, so many derivations of neocortex patterns can be traced back to emotion, mood and instinct; to the limbic system and reptilian complex respectively. The columns and layers in the neocortex are easily transposed onto computer memory and GPU’s and CPU’s can do the rest of the work. Once you add FPGA’s to the picture things speed up drastically. Human memory is arranged in such a way as to be a hierarchy that uses time based patterns. You can imagine how easy that is to map onto software and hardware.
End of Tech Talk

That is just one technique I can think of off the top of my head. I have learned to detect patterns myself - with my own mind on a conscious level - a computer is of course better at it but people can be taught to do it. In fact most people automatically do it to more or lesser a degree.

There is more to the answer than that but I think I have gone on for long enough. Also take into account that this is a singular proposal out of potentially many more. There is always more than one way of doing something - all I have to do now is put it in a more summarized format.

:open_mouth:

@ James - so now that I have answered one of your questions I have a request of you:

I would like to talk more about MIJOT and SAM Coops.

I was rather surprised how quickly you worked out where I was coming from in the other thread: The Silent Mind

We have discussed some interesting things so far and I have introduced the emotion of being curious and now I want to talk about the emotion that you have introduced “Joy”. I think joy is the ultimate goal on a daily basis and I really like your MIJOT principle - you also give great examples on how to maintain that joy.

Do you think that being curious is a good way for one to find ones next goal that you speak of? Allowing our level of Joy to rise again.

Does SAM Coops add to MIJOT? I imagine from what you are saying that the answer is yes.

How do you recognize or celebrate your perceived progress?

Curiosity eh??

Fascination perhaps???

Do you want a demon to possess you to cut off your own dick with your own arms???

No, curiosity does not necessarily make you happy!!

What I’ve always been interested in is what control we have over our emotions, and so our responsibility for them.

Everybody has had the sense of being locked in by their feelings, at some point or other. In the moment, a powerful feeling comes over us and even when we would have chosen to feel otherwise, we can’t. Anger, jealousy, despair, etc… But what we feel and how we respond are two different things. The ability to recognize a feeling and it’s whim, to table one’s ego for a moment and not just react - that is golden.

If you ever admired someone for the force of their personality and the way they’re able to navigate social or professional worlds, and if you ever wanted to figure out how they do it - I’d say you should start by paying attention to how they manage their emotions and how they are energized by them. How do they react to the positive, the negative, and everything in-between.

Anyways, I read these awhile ago and I’d recommend them to anyone interested in instinct, mood, emotion and philosophy.
Not Passion’s Slave: Emotions and Choice (other source) - Robert Solomon
What is an Emotion? (other source) - William James

Reminded me of this (I know, not quite on topic):

thoughtcatalog.com/brianna-wiest … t-explain/

I’m sure there are a lot more of those kinds of vague sensations that we get which are hard to put into words, but perhaps could be relayed through poetry. :-k

Hi Ecmandu,

Yeah . . .

Maybe . . .

Not too sure about the dick stuff . . .

Thanks Ecmandu - I appreciate this comment.

:slight_smile:

So are you saying that fascination keeps you happy? - or - Are you saying that fascination keeps you happy at times?

Hi fuse,

True - I guess taking responsibility for our emotions is harder than developing a logical mind.

Good point - which is where I became quite happy at the idea of there being a metric for emotional confinement - I think what you are saying happens all the time but to a more or a lesser degree.

I totally agree fuse.

Thank you very much - I will most certainly take a look at the articles - thank you for the other sources too, that is very considerate of you.

:smiley:

Hi Pandora,

Funny you should say that, when I performed a Google search that is mostly/all what I found from memory - poetry.

Thanks for the link I will take a look and make a comment on it.

:smiley:

Very appreciated Pandora.

ecmandu,

This is true, ecmandu.

It would primarily depend on who the individual is who is indulging in curiosity and what the subject of that curiosity is.

There are emotions, besides happiness, which some might find to be more beneficial to our well being albeit happiness is important for our all-around survival. If we are following our curiosity ~~ for instance, intellectual curiosity ~~ that can give us a sense of wonderment and mystery which can be extremely fulfilling.

We all need to be careful of that “cat within” though which could lead us astray.

Instead of words like happiness, intrigue and fascination…

I’d use the word “profundity”

James S Saint

It is going to take me a few days to get my head back in the game.

A) Here I only compare two states on purpose. It it easier to contrast two states than more. I am interested in other states that you might define - would you provide for me one or two more states? Please exclude substrate states; ie. the states within the brain.
B) I just want to remind you that I have often mixed these up. I accept the blame for the ambiguity I introduced - it is clear to me what you are saying.

So reasoning is deterministic and mood is bias?

:sunglasses:

- - - Extra - - -

There is more than one level of programming:

  1. The substrate code.
  2. The natural language.
  3. Logic Conclusion/Possible Corruption
    Each sitting atop of each other. Confined to states internal and external to the substrate.

- - - logic working in all three layers - - -

Points → i (affectance)

i ≡ inception ∨ recognition ∨ perception

helps us understand why we forget and remember things; helps us understand why ambiguity takes place.

i can be thought of as always there because as you say: “Nothingness”, is absolutely impossible.

i ≡ secondarily the potential for the unknown to become known. In other words the unknown is always there.

- - - Correction - - -

  1. You say: Mood is a mental state that biases emotional response.
  2. I now say: Reasoning is a mental state that determines logical response.

Better?

:smiley:

I know the feeling.

I would say that reasoning is more logic bound (consistency of thought). Mood is inattentive to logic.

If by “natural language”, you mean the natural language of thought, I would agree. There are also social languages and social education, each divergent from natural physiological construct.

I would call that state, “sanity” (cohesiveness of thought). Reasoning is a process, much like programming.

James

Extremely valuable input - thank you very, very much . . . It is becoming very clear to me how RM:AO affects my work - I endeavor to make it very clear to you if it isn’t already. One step at a time as they say . . . I am very grateful to you . . .

That is exactly what I mean. There are two of them - one is English in our case and the other is hidden/silent(you don’t need English to think). The same rules apply for social language.

I am going to go out on a limb here. To get my point across I must play with words a little.

► Everything known was once unknown.

► Everything there is still to know already exists, it is just undiscovered, un-evolved an un-configured.

► Everything can be expressed as information.

► Discovery is just the unknown configured into formation.

► Inception is formation.

► Unknown in-formation is known.

i(inception) ≡ unknown/known(both quantifiable - even if random; randomness is then just un-evolved and un-configured)

i can be thought of as always there because as you say: “Nothingness”, is absolutely impossible.

i ≡ secondarily the potential for the unknown to become known.

With a twist of lemon: The known is always there - even if undiscovered.

Now for some cerebral flatulence:
If this holds for logic then I suspect it works for emotion - therefore I do not think all emotions are instinctual but rather some emotions are manufactured once we become self-aware - self-awareness is potentially a product of logic. Instinct is a product of logic that is formed in the substrate. The substrate is formed prior to birth. All things are recursively repeating - substrate is formed from matter - matter is formed from affectance. The skipped steps in this paragraph are arbitrary to the gist. Energy and matter are the same thing. Logic and emotion stem from the same place. The universe is alive and intelligent(I don’t know how) and can be thought of as a huge brain - like the brain some parts are undiscovered, un-evolved and un-configured.

- - - back to regular viewing - - -

Oh I agree - I am still keeping the two separate - just that they stem from the same place and inevitably affect each other.

There is a hint however that reasoning is deterministic - even if only partially - delta.

I feel sanity is a convergence of the mood and logic. Correct me if I am wrong - we might debate it a little though - just fyi.

I stand corrected.

They are inclusive so:

i ≡ inception ∨ perception ∨ recognition ∨ consciousness

??? Emotion and mood seem to be more autonomous ???

:sunglasses:

FINAL NOTES: i ≡ inception ∨ perception ∨ recognition ∨ consciousness is confined as follows:

Confinement[space ∨ scope ∨ time](i ≡ inception ∨ perception ∨ recognition ∨ consciousness)

or more elegantly:

Confinement(i)

or even better:

C(i)

I call this Rational Confinement(RC) . . . Motion bounds space and time to each person but that is a story for another day . . .

So to refine the terminology:

RC(i)

or more simply:

R(i)

:smiley:

The is a hint of the emotional process and Emotional Confinement in this post.

To re-iterate a subsection of Rational Confinement(R):

Logical deduction, when answering a question, is limited by:

[list]1. cognitive limitations
2. time available to answer the question
3. openness to influence from the social norm
4. availability of accurate information[/list:u]

Plugging this subsection of R gives us a/one potential confinement to our consciousness.

or:

R(i)

So hopefully the dots are easier enough to join here . . .

:-k

To where is all of this leading? :-s

Hopefully, on topic,

encode wrote

Is randomness an actuality or does it only (seem to) exist due to our limited perspectives…unscaled? If it is undiscovered (un-evolved/un-configured) to us, then only order exists?

James

To answer your question it might pay for me to ask you a question - forgive me if I am wrong. I often introduce ambiguity - so your question is confusing me and it is probably because of something I have done(affectance); clarify - verify etc.

My question is:

Something bother you about it?

Paranoia . . . that’s me . . .

:-"

Only that without a goal in mind, it seems like a lot of vague or loose ends. It’s hard to make decisions concerning what is important or not until a purpose or priority is establied.

James

OK I understand the question now.

My goal was stated at the top of the original post as follows:

This thread is about instinct, mood and emotion and a philosophical discussion about the three.

In saying that however - I have never minded getting a little off topic especially when it illustrates analogous thinking - no matter how distant it might seem.

So to restate my original goal a different way - it was simply to have a philosophical discussion about instinct, mood and emotion. The most general question would be: what are they? But it need not answer that.

At the end of the original post I stated:

In other posts I will initiate the topics of instinct and emotion but I wanted to start with mood given how hard it is to get a grip on.

So you could say the goal of the thread is to get a grip on instinct, mood and emotion in a philosophical setting. Not necessarily everyone’s cup of tea but I thought I would throw it out there.

Now to your original question:

Just to an enhanced understanding of instinct, mood and emotion.

:-k

Hopefully that clears things up.