[Fis] Final Author Response: Emotional Sentience
Eric Werner
eric.werner at oarf.org
Sat May 25 17:40:24 CEST 2024
Thanks Kate for a great discussion!
Eric
On 5/24/24 11:46 PM, Katherine Peil Kauffman wrote:
>
> Dear FIS Community,
>
> Thank you all so much for this wonderful conversation. Despite
> intervening challenges, it’s been an honor to read and ponder each
> offering, and a delight to experience progress toward common ground.
> By way of winding up, I’d like to address some recent emerging themes
> and emphasize their place in the bigger picture.
>
> So for the big picture: Emotion is acknowledged as an ancient
> whole-body sensory system, delivering evaluative feedback information
> to /regulate/ – to actualize, develop, preserve, integrate, and
> balance –- all aspects of identity (physical, mental, social, etc). I
> offered my Tao story to ground this new view in direct experience, and
> as a computational metaphor to address the causal processes of nature
> (known and unknown) and source of the information encoded in hedonic
> qualia. So in a nutshell, emotion is the /feeling of direct
> participation /in The Tao, which – like Whiteheadian metaphysics (and
> Bohmian & Kauffmanian physics) – reflects the creative, dynamic and
> transformative flow between two Yin~Yang (0~1) domains of reality
> (timeless~timebound; dreaming~waking; internal~external;
> possible~actual; quantum~classical).
>
> As electro-chemical stimulus-response feedback signals, feelings
> encode both /digital and analog/ informational processes – binary and
> non-binary (fuzzy) logic; They define and alter /identity boundaries/,
> reflecting the resonant self-organizing dance between /parts and
> wholes, autonomous and collective behavior, /defining “self” as both
> individual /me and social we, balancing cooperation and competition/,
> and/enabling constructive interference, symbiosis and emergent
> complexity. /They sing the song of /possibles and actuals/, of /being
> and becoming/, they surprise us with new need-meeting environmental
> affordances, informing us of self-relevant /opportunities and threats,
> building associative memory, attitudes and habits. As innate Pavlovian
> rewards and punishments, /they deliver value – defining /right (and
> wrong/) states, balances and trajectories with universal yes~no
> messages of pleasure and pain. They shout “/yes”/ to mindful
> /self-development/ and bodily /self-preservation/, and a resounding
> “no” to entropic self-destruction. Emotional feelings function as the
> /self-regulatory music/ of the body; the common language of
> life-giving activity at every level of scale in time and space. They
> now offer three levels of information that deliver evermore complex
> consciousness and creative freedom; they help build optimal mindscapes
> and social landscapes; they liberate us from the binary limits of our
> behavioral hardware – and ultimately from our own “unconscious”
> biases, delusions and destructive choices.
>
> So for the new unexplored theme: Alex brilliantly hits the nail on the
> head when has says that the “strange systems” with “fractal
> physiology” do not behave like a “mechanism”, and that “consciousness
> is plumb at the center”. Even moreso, when he says /“they give a
> series of distinctly different, unpredictableresponses with a distinct
> envelope of frequenciescalled a Fractal (1/f) distribution.” /Indeed,
> as I mentioned early on, the fundamental Yin~Yang complements within
> hedonic qualia are traceable to the ultimate Taoist dance between
> /disorder~order/ and “*edge-of-chaos” criticality* – which is
> represented by the 1/f distribution, also known as “fractional” or
> “pink noise”. //
>
> The concept of fractal physiology captures some of the missing
> theoretical pieces – biologically relative /identity boundaries/ in
> complex systems; the variable /connectivity/ configurations that
> mediate parts and wholes and dynamic phase transitions; and the
> foundational stimulus source of sensation and basal intelligence. It
> can help us locate the significance of geometry and topology in terms
> of boundary dynamics, informational flows and unique identity
> structures, and clarify the organizational and informational closure
> of a “Kantian Whole”. It also can help us overcome the common concern
> herein of “dimensions” and consider instead /analog and digital/ forms
> of information - both of which are present in emotional sensory-motor
> loop (in the cybernetic /signal/ and its coupled /response/,
> respectively, for those of you that have read my introductory paper).
>
> For the final unexplored theme: Howard brings us to death, apoptosis,
> and the requirement for self-destructive behavior in living systems
> (like the Freudian death instinct “Thanatos”.) Death and /pain /are
> intimate biological associates, and our hardwired fight and flight
> defenses move us to avoid them like the plague. But this underscores
> my central point: that emotion also offers /information,/ building
> evermore complex /software /via the/enactive mind./ The hardwired
> defenses are temporary safeguards until /the mind comes on-line,/
> entering the “OODA” control loop. Such mindful intervention begins
> with the embrace of the /binary logic of emotion/ – which as a species
> /we have not/. Instead of aligning with the self-regulatory dynamics
> and imperatives of nature (and /reducing/ the universal conditions
> that elicit pain), we have created an entire sphere of man-made
> “suffering” by leveraging the power of emotional pain as /social
> punishment/ to regulate, control or dominate /one another./ Think of
> the motivational, behavioral, and social capital of such complex
> negative emotions as shame, guilt, resentment, mistrust, terror,
> contempt, rage or hate, how they undergird zero-sum tribalism,
> political extremism, religion indoctrination and chronic
> self-loathing. (We even exploit and manipulate through bribes that
> offer natural rewards, but in terms of hardwired behaviors feeling
> “bad” is far stronger than “good”.)
>
> Of course there is far more to say about all this. (And Howard has a
> gift at pointing out our human folly with great humor and wit.) But it
> comes down to the question of /power/, and /who is in control of your
> life?/ Many might claim we are machines devoid of free will. But if
> that were the case, why would we need sensory perception or feedback
> information of any variety - /why would we need pain? / Others might
> claim that pain is our spiritual punishment for disobedience (our
> “original sin”), if not evidence of supernatural “evil”. But our
> biology suggests instead that /pain is crucial information/ about
> misuses and abuses of our free will; That we only earn as much free
> will – and creative power - as we can utilize /optimally/,
> /intentionally/, and /collectively/, in resonant alignment with the
> ever-present stream of emotional sensory information. A truly
> brilliant design actually, with the meta-crises of the day suggesting
> we humans deserve our impending Darwin Award.
>
> Still, I remain optimistic that information science can offer some
> relief. While I may now be wandering confused in the zoo of new and
> exotic forms “logic”, I deeply appreciate the steps we have taken
> here toward clarifying what I mean by “eduction” – or emotional
> reasoning. Please do feel free to interact, push back, and advise
> behind the scenes as you see fit.
>
> With kindred affections,
>
> Kate Kauffman
>
>
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--
/Dr. Eric Werner
Oxford Advanced Research Foundation
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://oarf.org__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!V6lsElVq-UeLRLtEPWRGSfXA13zg4uRrj9r7PPMD6gxGiAITUzgQ0fMlQ9pRf4y9sOWFXLVPqTO1KVIBNtWwKJI$
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