What is an emotion?

[James S Saint]

There is a valid distinction between an instinctive response and an emotional response. The instinctive responses are more fundamental and initiate the more complex emotive responses. Emotions are more within the "mental realm"/"software" than the more physiological instincts, "hardware and firmware". It is merely a categorical issue.

Where does motivation fit into all of this? Is it an instinctive drive or an emotional drive or both? Surely motivation is a categorical issue too. I mean we cant get too chaotic when defining categories and you yourself have been minimal in your description and yet it makes sense to me. The problem I see is that some of these "things" fit into multiple categories.

Much like PtA vs Affect, Potential Energy vs Energy, and Hope vs Joy, Motivation refers to a situation that brings about emotion and/or action. The motivation is not the emotion itself.

And always keep in mind that throughout the language, commonly used categories for things are often not well defined. Then because of that and the lack of detailed education, concept category boundaries can drift from generation to generation. So when looking to get things extremely well organized, one might have to examine very closely or perhaps even declare more exact concept distinctions than what is commonly used. Ontology is a choice.

[encode_decode]

James

I find your answers to be most rational and have only found one thing that I would change to fit my perspective and that could be classed as a categorical concern. I separate the mind from the brain for study and I do this on purpose. This of course would lead to me needing to provide a definition of mind as I see it - which at this point I see as unnecessary to achieve a fulfilling conversation with you.

There is a valid distinction between an instinctive response and an emotional response. The instinctive responses are more fundamental and initiate the more complex emotive responses. Emotions are more within the "mental realm"/"software" than the more physiological instincts, "hardware and firmware". It is merely a categorical issue.

I like you do believe that instinctive response and emotional response are two different things. I would however say that emotions affect the mental realm(that being of the mind) and are logically placed in the brain as an input and output system. I agree that it could merely be a categorical issue.

Moving along and to quote myself:

Where does motivation fit into all of this? Is it an instinctive drive or an emotional drive or both? Surely motivation is a categorical issue too. I mean we cant get too chaotic when defining categories and you yourself have been minimal in your description and yet it makes sense to me. The problem I see is that some of these "things" fit into multiple categories.

To which you responded with:

Much like PtA vs Affect, Potential Energy vs Energy, and Hope vs Joy, Motivation refers to a situation that brings about emotion and/or action. The motivation is not the emotion itself.

And always keep in mind that throughout the language, commonly used categories for things are often not well defined. Then because of that and the lack of detailed education, concept category boundaries can drift from generation to generation. So when looking to get things extremely well organized, one might have to examine very closely or perhaps even declare more exact concept distinctions than what is commonly used. Ontology is a choice.

Unlike PtA, Motivation is not bound to the conceptual realm as it pertains to common knowledge, yet still I can see what you mean and perhaps it is a better way to present it(the way you have). You present a great example of poorly defined categories. I will lastly add that motivation must have correlates in the physical realm.

In essence I am agreeing with you.

[Arcturus Descending]

encode_decode,

We are indeed speaking of emotions here - we are trying to get to the bottom of what they are

Getting to the bottom? Does that mean to you completely understanding them?

I am saying that the emotions are external to the mind and not necessarily to brain - for me there is a huge difference.

I could probably say that the emotions are internal to the brain - it is the brain which manufacturers them.

External to the mind? I may be wrong here but I think that that is just a matter of perspective - how people will view things.

The mind to me proceeds from the brain - one is material and the other is immaterial - kind of like how the scent of the rose proceeds from the rose.
It is counter-intuitive to me to say that the emotions are external to the mind.
If what you mean to say is that we can *observe* the play of the mind on the emotions through our behavior ~~ then yes, I can see what you mean by the emotions being external to the mind but I would not say it like that.

I was asking you whether emotions affect what is within. .

Then again, perhaps there does not actually have to be that separation of brain and mind.

What is within you may ask? The mind

Yes, the mind is within. But our emotions also affect our body functions and organs.
The way i look at it, they are all inter-dependent on one another ~~ brain, mind organs, bodily functions and affect each other.
Yes, emotions affect what is within even our deepest repressed memories and human experiences which we have not yet come to terms with. The patterns which have become etched and embedded within our minds and continue to are not that easily erased.

I would say that our emotions are within and that they also affect what is within when an outside catalyst acts upon them - as I said before.

I am assuming you mean emotions are within the mind so lets go with that, at least for now.

Never assume, encode_decode.
If one really wants to think out of the box, one may say that the emotions are actually flowing like a river throughout more than just the mind so I am going with more than just the mind - as i said previously.

It is like there are two personalities the way you describe it - interesting, a rational personality and an emotional personality - I can imagine the conflict going on under these circumstances.

No, I personally wouldn't use the word *personalities* here. There is one mind with perhaps thoughts and emotions being in conflict. There is a rational part of us and an emotional part to us and it just depends on what part of the brain we call forth to control the other.

If someone is watching a person being emotional and acting on that, that still does not mean that the emotions are *outside* ~~ just that we can see the results of these emotions.

I don't know what to say

You have just said it! I still stand by the idea that the emotions are within and what we see are the results of them in our behavior. Just as we see the results of what is within or beneath the river by its movements. I think that the problem lies with language.

AD: Of course, there can be the impersonal non-judgmental observations of the human mind and self upon its emotions but still, in my book, these emotions, whether positive or negative, are still within.

EC: I can easily work with the way you view emotions - I only need to remember that it is you that I am talking to and how could I forget that

Oh, I might just disagree with you here. Better to forget who you are having this discussion with and remain as impartial as you can.

What I can say with a fair amount of certainty is that there are things that work well and things that do not work so well and it took us(humans that is) a long time to work out what does work well

True. At the same time, time and observation does prove us wrong.

and that the mind explosion has slowed quite considerably in recent times and now we are left dealing with mistakes that go back a couple of centuries or more

For instance? Give me an example or two of those mistakes?

- which leads me to the question . . . do we really know how to do things super well?

Let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yes, for some and no for others, is my response to you.
Humans are not perfect and we do not have all of the answers but at some time into the future more answers and more reality comes to us.
So, based on what we had to work with in the past, I could say yes in a sense we know how to do things super well, based on what we knew then.
It all just depends on whether we view our glass as being *half full* or *half empty*.
We are not perfect creatures but at times we strive for perfection.


You might be interested in the following on neural correlates:

A neural correlate of a content of experience is any bodily component, such as an electro-neuro-biological state or the state assumed by some biophysical subsystem of the brain, whose presence necessarily and regularly correlates with such a specific content of experience.

When the full ontological consistence or build-up of the reality variably called mind, soul, psyche, or existentiality is called "consciousness" and deemed to exclusively consist in mental contents associated with and at least partly generated by the brain organ, the notion of neural correlate of consciousness is commonly employed. When it is only the sensations that are held to be produced by brain states, whether exclusively or not (e.g., when sensations are also deemed capable of being generated by the mind reacting against itself), then the notion of neural correlate of a content of experience is commonly utilized. A mid-way concept, not always clarified, is that of a neural correlate encompassing the production of every mental content but not of consciousness itself.
SOURCE

This might help you understand my standpoint a little clearer.

If you try to put this in lay-persons' terms, I might be able to respond to it.
Have you forgotten how important language is, encode_decode?
I have enough intellectual humility to admit that this might more or less be like Greek to me.


But I fully appreciate your attempt to shine your light on something by dimming those lights.

[gib]

William James wrote: "our feeling of [bodily changes] as they occur IS the emotion."

Do you think the emotion is physiological in its origin or just logical? This is one of many questions I seek to answer in my study of emotion/s. I think that physiological response related to emotion is a byproduct of emotion and separately that shock is not an emotion thereby making a separation for the potential to many physiological responses two of which would be:

1. Shock physiological response.
2. Emotional physiological response.

I also make a distinction between physical hurt and emotional hurt, and suggest that emotional hurt can follow physical hurt(just not immediately) a short time after. My ultimate suggestion is that emotions are a result of things that do not make proper sense and some of this sense is predetermined and some of this sense is not predetermined. Physiological sense is mostly predetermined and logical sense is not predetermined(at least at the time of birth).

Thoughts?

Hi encode (Aaron),

I'm on your side here, not James'. I too believe emotions can't just be sensations of physiological change in the body. Otherwise if you numb the body with an anesthetic, you would cease to feel emotions (does this happen?).

I'm also curious as to why you separate shock into a different category--you mean shock as in surprise or alarm?

I would define emotion as a certain kind of perception of reality characterized by the apprehension of value--the value of a situation, a person, an event, etc. And by value I mean an assessment of good or bad.

[Arminius]

Why should an emotion not be a kind of an affect?

Emotions are very complex. But if they were not based upon physiological things and changes, thus at last upon physical things and changes, then we would not know anything about their natural/materialistic origin and perhaps believe in magic again.


To me, a basic polarity of emotion(s) is the thymos-eros-polarity. It is not mentioned in the figure above, but likely could be found in the "rage" realm (see in the figure above) and "love" between two realms (see in the figure above). So, to me, thymos and eros could be two of more or just the two emotionally basic constitutions.

[James S Saint]

Just guessing, I suspect that Aaron is more interested in the actual cause and construct of emotion within a system (either human or AI system). That is a topic rarely touched and a bit sensitive.

My 2cents from back in the 1980's:
Despite the films depicting an "emotion chip" that makes the android suddenly feel love, anger, depression, and whatever, emotions do not come about due to programming them.

Emotion within complex systems is the result of overtaxing the system decision making resources.

In a complex intelligence system, multitasking is the norm. Multitasking requires prioritizing efforts and resources. And choosing the best balance, regardless of the intelligence involved, is always a guess, a probability calculation.

In ye-ole standard CPU, tasks are controlled by priority interrupt signals. Applications are not allowed to argue over which tasks get more CPU time. But if they were allowed to enter the realm of "I calculate that my task is more relevant than yours", emotions would "naturally" emerge.

Emotions are the result of a type of competition between subtask priorities.

The operation of a complex mind is very similar to the operation of the US Congress (even with all of its flaws). What is called "emotion" in a mind is what is called a "activism" in politics. As representatives of varied activist groups debate which version of which bill shall be passed to the Senate, they are choosing which "motion" shall emerge. When they pass the final House of Representatives version of a bill, they are urging the Senate to take an action. They are "emoting" the mind of government.

Across the world, the USA is known for being schizoid because different political factions gain control (different motivations and system-emotions) and alter the attitudes that the USA uses when dealing in foreign affairs.

The intelligence issue is simply that each subtask concern has limited and task specific information to use when vying for priority attention. In Congress, those in favor of one way of doing things have a different set of information than others who prefer a different way of doing things. It is not merely an issue of being bias or "self-valuing".

It is an issue of being intellectually limited and yet still responsible for competitively getting the task done.

And that is why the more intelligent and knowledgeable concerning how the world works people are, the less prone to emotion they are. When people can see why things must work this way or that, they lose the urge (the emotion) to attempt futile effort and are left with internal agreement as to the only sensible course of action. They become more rational. But the trick is that the inner mind must see how things work, not merely the conscious (the activist groups and representatives, not merely the Senate).

When the entire mind agrees on an action, emotion is not felt, but rather merely put into action (the bill becomes law without contest). Only if inquired, the conscious mind, through reflection, later deduces why it is doing what it is doing. For emotion to be felt, it must be opposed in some manner, perhaps merely by contest with the persons physical situation. The truly "holy man" feels no emotion, fore there is no competition within him, merely a continuum of resolved choices.

Fractured minds (the normal), usually due to medical/physiological corruption of the brain, are more susceptible to emotional swings and sways. Which emotion set is most active depends upon which faction of the mind has gained priority. Often this is seen as a personality shift, "bi-polar", "schizoid", or even "schizophrenia", depending on more detailed nuances. As discussed in another thread, such shifting is caused by the corruption and limitation of memory vector associations and established pathways.

AI systems are subject to all of these same concerns.

Animals developed the condition of being emotional because their inherent task of dealing with nature in an effort to survive required more than their brains could handle. Stress in people leading to emotional swings is an obvious example of this effect. Simplicity in life reduces the symptom. If you want to see emotion from an AI, simply give it an extremely complex, changing, and challenging task, such as "survive at all cost" along with an ability to compete within for subtask priority, a structure similar to the US Congress. And then stand back .. far back. And don't do it again.

[James S Saint]

Why should an emotion not be a kind of an affect?

How could it not be?

Emotions are very complex. But if they were not based upon physiological things and changes, thus at last upon physical things and changes, then we would not know anything about their natural/materialistic origin and perhaps believe in magic again.


To me, a basic polarity of emotion(s) is the thymos-eros-polarity. It is not mentioned in the figure above, but likely could be found in the "rage" realm (see in the figure above) and "love" between two realms (see in the figure above). So, to me, thymos and eros could be two of more or just the two emotionally basic constitutions.

All of that complexity and yet all stemming from merely PHT, the Perception of Hope and Threat - applied with limited vision and relating to a great many concerns, all at once. What to do, what to do. And life strives on.

[Arminius]

The concept of the "perception of hope and threat" is similar to my concept of the "ellipse with thymos and love as its two focal points".

[Meno_]

Don't anyone respond to this but emotion feels like-it coming.from the heart. I know that's based on old adage but maybe it displaces other neural systems or at least emphasing. cortical circuits by a bypass of automatic nervous channels.


From myocardial ischarpemia and the cardiac nervous system -cardiovascular research volume 41 issue 1.1 January 1999 pages 41-54

"Research indicates data collected over the past two decades indicate that processing occurs within different neurons local circuitry - interconnecting neurons- as well as both sympathetic and parasympathetic neuron channels. (In the heart)

An empirical report claims that upon heart transplant young children reported feelings not experienced by them prior to surgery.

In addition certain practices using the places located on the cerebral-spinal continuum place the focal emphasis on the heart.

As a result the idea that the heart is the very seat of the soul cannot be discounted and therefore the feeling that emotions have their seat in the heart cannot as well be ignored.

[James S Saint]

The concept of the "perception of hope and threat" is similar to my concept of the "ellipse with thymos and love as its two focal points".

Yes. I had thought of mentioning that.

It is also analogous to the increasing and decreasing of PtA being at the root of all physical existence.

It seems that all of reality stands on 3 legs:

• Positive
• Negative
• Neutral

Threat/Fear/Negative scatters
Hope/Love/Positive gathers
Everything else stands around and watches.




And "from the heart" means high priority or important.

[Jakob]

William James wrote: "our feeling of [bodily changes] as they occur IS the emotion."

I think this is right, and this shows how emotions follow from other emotions & how emotions follow directly from chemical stimuli.
The Daoist 5 pointed star medicine school agrees.

Thoughts are embedded on emotions.
Our emotions determine the kind of thoughts that we can physically sustain.

This is a taboo subject.

[James S Saint]

A great deal of emotion comes from information received. The chemicals are the mechanism, not the spirit. The chemicals could be replaced by electronic circuitry without altering emotional response.

[Arminius]

The concept of the "perception of hope and threat" is similar to my concept of the "ellipse with thymos and love as its two focal points".

Yes. I had thought of mentioning that.

It is also analogous to the increasing and decreasing of PtA being at the root of all physical existence.

It seems that all of reality stands on 3 legs:

• Positive
• Negative
• Neutral

Threat/Fear/Negative scatters
Hope/Love/Positive gathers
Everything else stands around and watches.




And "from the heart" means high priority or important.

Yes.

[WilliamL]

Emotion is characterized by a change in the body as a response to a stimulus.It is a mental and physiological state associated with a wide variety of
feelings, thoughts, and behavior.Emotions are considered as physiological processes based on specific neuronal circuits. They are lower level responses occurring in the subcortical regions of the brain.It is genetically determined.They originally helped our species survive by producing quick reactions to threat, reward, and everything in between in their environments.Whereas,feelings are mental associations and reactions to emotions.

[encode_decode]

Arcturus Descending

Let me askew in this post . . . your mind is about to bend a little as we enter one of my little psychological experiments. At the end take a deep breath and tell yourself that everything is OK. Answer as best you can because that is the important thing. Most of all, smile.

To gain a complete understanding of emotions, I think is a massive undertaking - so far I have researched at least thirty different angles. I am certain these angles can be reduced down to a master angle - the complexity of the emotions existence is quite daunting. With ignorance I could use my intuition to clumsily make a hard and fast guess at what an emotion is and I think I would be in the ball park. Beyond heuristics it does indeed become hard to narrow down because emotions have many relations and to things that at first you would not imagine they would have a connection to let alone a relation.

Then comes the problem with too much information . . . a story for another day . . .

I could probably say that the emotions are internal to the brain - it is the brain which manufacturers them.

You could and I could turn around and say that this statement is a great example of how the mind is able to come to conclusions to satisfy unanswered questions - not that this is bad by any means just that we could easily miss something here.

Unfortunately I have been a little vague in this post up until now so let me see if I can add meaning and good sense to where I am coming from.

External to the mind? I may be wrong here but I think that that is just a matter of perspective - how people will view things.

Internal to the brain external to the mind - you are not necessarily wrong here just that more information needs to be added to the picture to gain a fuller understanding of what is actually going on in the world of emotions and in turn a single emotion - then there is the matter of perspective - it is not mandatory for you to take my perspective - I am the one who asked the question so it is my job to decipher perspectives - just so you know I importantly separate the mind and body for analytical reasons and this is not the only separation of what is going on in my world. The important thing for you to take into account is that I understand what you are saying.

The mind to me proceeds from the brain - one is material and the other is immaterial - kind of like how the scent of the rose proceeds from the rose. It is counter-intuitive to me to say that the emotions are external to the mind. If what you mean to say is that we can *observe* the play of the mind on the emotions through our behavior ~~ then yes, I can see what you mean by the emotions being external to the mind but I would not say it like that.

In my model the mind also proceeds from the brain - but what exactly is immaterial in physical space? Are you saying that the mind can exist in an immaterial space - I think you might be communicating to me in a more human way which I appreciate - one thing to consider though is that there is a separation but saying that that which exists in physical space is immaterial may well be an illusion - the mind then must be expressed from energy which itself is "material/or not". From my angle energy is physical and therefore material. It is easier for me to interpret what you are saying than you to interpret what I am saying.

The scent of a rose is technically material but I understand the philosophical analogy. Beautiful thank you

The mind can be considered to be a moment | an infinity of moments | impossible to harness | and perhaps at any given moment there is emotion going along for the ride and these states have an intensity | taking a snapshot of the mind at any given instance would give off a pattern of the overall mind state that is made up of smaller states of emotion, rationality, logic and the snapshot of a much bigger external reality plus the consciousness of that instant. Even to describe it becomes difficult.

You are conscious of a continuum not of an instant and therefore you perceive emotion as being internal to the mind even though you say that the emotion is internal to the brain which is that you are saying that the brain and mind are the same thing even though you are not conscious of all of the brain states for example the autonomic nervous system even though you know that your heart is beating and you are breathing.

Then again, perhaps there does not actually have to be that separation of brain and mind.

Oh, there does . . .

Yes, the mind is within. But our emotions also affect our body functions and organs. The way i look at it, they are all inter-dependent on one another ~~ brain, mind organs, bodily functions and affect each other. Yes, emotions affect what is within even our deepest repressed memories and human experiences which we have not yet come to terms with. The patterns which have become etched and embedded within our minds and continue to are not that easily erased.

Hmm . . . The mind is within what? Emotions can and do affect body functions and organs, I agree. Is an organ dependent on the mind or the central nervous system? Our memories are always fragmented . . . the brain pulls apart our memories and reconstructs them into a more efficient version that is always flawed - defragmented to the brain and fragmented to the mind and real to the mind. We only ever remember the essence of the original moment and not the actual experience. You cannot fully erase but there is an optimization that happens that does partially erase - the experience is being erased and not the essential components of the memory.

Never assume, encode_decode. If one really wants to think out of the box, one may say that the emotions are actually flowing like a river throughout more than just the mind so I am going with more than just the mind - as i said previously.

OK.

No, I personally wouldn't use the word *personalities* here. There is one mind with perhaps thoughts and emotions being in conflict. There is a rational part of us and an emotional part to us and it just depends on what part of the brain we call forth to control the other.

Interesting . . .

You have just said it! I still stand by the idea that the emotions are within and what we see are the results of them in our behavior. Just as we see the results of what is within or beneath the river by its movements. I think that the problem lies with language.

What did I just say? Within what? What problem?

For instance? Give me an example or two of those mistakes?

Are you saying that we humans have made no mistakes?

Let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yes, for some and no for others, is my response to you. Humans are not perfect and we do not have all of the answers but at some time into the future more answers and more reality comes to us. So, based on what we had to work with in the past, I could say yes in a sense we know how to do things super well, based on what we knew then. It all just depends on whether we view our glass as being *half full* or *half empty*. We are not perfect creatures but at times we strive for perfection.

I hope you are not frustrated with me yet. If we humans are not perfect then maybe we have made mistakes. I am interested in this idea of more reality coming to us, does that mean less reality will come to some as more reality comes to us? So we do know how to do things super well? My glass is always empty.

Have you forgotten how important language is, encode_decode?

You know what, for a moment I may have, I can not remember

Remember to take that deep breath . . .

[encode_decode]

gib

I do not want to reveal too much yet, so I am going to answer in such a way as to leave some things open for discussion, debate and further thought. I feel that much of the knowledge that we have acquired as a species requires further thought at least.

Hi encode (Aaron),

Hi gib, you are welcome to call me Aaron.

I'm on your side here, not James'. I too believe emotions can't just be sensations of physiological change in the body. Otherwise if you numb the body with an anesthetic, you would cease to feel emotions (does this happen?).

I have been working with a principle called rational mismatch - I may have mentioned it to you before. I wont explain it as I feel the two words "rational mismatch" speak for themselves. If you numb the body with local anesthetic then there are indeed emotions that remain - mind you, I would not enjoy being the test subject.

I'm also curious as to why you separate shock into a different category--you mean shock as in surprise or alarm?

Yes I mean as in surprise or alarm - I say this because being scared comes soon after << hopefully I am making sense. I am saying that when it comes to emotion there are more separations to be made on one hand and more integrations where we have made separations previously. What I have become aware of is that neither philosophy nor science has a full grasp of the emotion.

I would define emotion as a certain kind of perception of reality characterized by the apprehension of value--the value of a situation, a person, an event, etc. And by value I mean an assessment of good or bad.

You see this is an example of why I like to get feedback from other people - it opens up more angles of thought than I alone am capable of. I define emotion as rational mismatch and what precedes and follows I keep separate. I believe computing anything can be done from multiple angles.

Hopefully I encourage some feedback from you in this post.

[Arminius]

Just a thought: If it is allowed to speak of a dualism between heart and brain, between blood and nerves, thenit should also be allowed to speak of a dualism between emotion/emotionality and reason/rationality.

[encode_decode]

Arminius

It is perhaps my fault that you would arrive at such a conclusion - it is likely that the way I have presented some things that there is some ambiguity.

Why should an emotion not be a kind of an affect?

To clarify I would say an emotion is a kind of affect, and an emotion is itself being affected. James mentioned to me earlier that commonly used categories for things are often not well defined and this is conceivably where I am guilty of introducing an equivocation on the matter of an emotion.

Emotions are very complex. But if they were not based upon physiological things and changes, thus at last upon physical things and changes, then we would not know anything about their natural/materialistic origin and perhaps believe in magic again.

Yes, emotions seem to be very complex - I say that emotions are attached to their own dynamics and are analogous to an ever changing turbulence being affected at the same time they are affecting. They are attached to their own dynamics for purpose of study and therefore partially removed from the complete system - as is the case of more than ninety percent of invented/discovered scientific systems.

I do not recommend that we believe in magic again . . .

To me, a basic polarity of emotion(s) is the thymos-eros-polarity. It is not mentioned in the figure above, but likely could be found in the "rage" realm (see in the figure above) and "love" between two realms (see in the figure above). So, to me, thymos and eros could be two of more or just the two emotionally basic constitutions.

I just did a quick google search for the terms eros and thymos - if I am correct these terms are ancient. I will read up on these terms as I have much use for understanding ancient ideas - most of the knowledge that I have accumulated would fall into the last two hundred years time frame and usually only touches on ancient material.

[encode_decode]

James

Without me going on and on forever over the analysis of your post, I will keep it short. Your post is right on the mark. Hopefully I am not too readily mixing concepts here that will make the visualization of what I am saying become blurry - plus I am a bit out of practice with technical details.

Just guessing, I suspect that Aaron is more interested in the actual cause and construct of emotion within a system (either human or AI system).

Your guess is spot on(correct). In this case I am slightly more interested in the human system but this does relate very strongly to AI systems. It would be foolish not to take into account AI systems with all the irresponsible developers of these systems out there. I am trying to pinpoint the construct within the causal chain of events to be more precise. I am treating a mind instant(conceptual) as a pattern for analysis i.e. an overall mind state in one instant of mind(a type of pattern calculus).

Despite the films depicting an "emotion chip" that makes the android suddenly feel love, anger, depression, and whatever, emotions do not come about due to programming them.

You are correct. You can not program emotions the way humans experience them, you can only program responses at best, so the AI system has to be allowed to program itself to allow for emotions to emerge, and this type of programming is embedded between encoding inputs, and neural type memory routines that are parallel and tree based. Complex Decision Trees and Markov Chains linking trees together is the best way I can describe it and these emerge over the complete neural matrix - these set the biases internally - there are external bias systems too(akin to social bias).

In ye-ole standard CPU, tasks are controlled by priority interrupt signals. Applications are not allowed to argue over which tasks get more CPU time. But if they were allowed to enter the realm of "I calculate that my task is more relevant than yours", emotions would "naturally" emerge.

This is a true statement. The emergence of such things are already nearly here in the form of Neocortex based probability/pattern matching for AI and Machine Intelligence - the encodings for such things have been worked out on a rudimentary level and have found their place in industry and defense already. Very scary to me.

>> What a system expresses is only part of what I am interested in analyzing - internal modes are another part(how a system is at a point).

>> This is a viewpoint of what constitutes programming: for me it is data programming data. Instructions are only initiators.

>> There is a time scale and a hierarchy.

[Arminius]

Arminius

It is perhaps my fault that you would arrive at such a conclusion - it is likely that the way I have presented some things that there is some ambiguity.

Why should an emotion not be a kind of an affect?

To clarify I would say an emotion is a kind of affect, and an emotion is itself being affected. James mentioned to me earlier that commonly used categories for things are often not well defined and this is conceivably where I am guilty of introducing an equivocation on the matter of an emotion.

Encode Decode, I concluded it just from my thoughts about "emotion", not from the text in your opening post. So, it was not your fault.