That’s not true at all. Virtually all animals possess the ability to make rational and logical decisions, albiet at a far lower level of complexity than humans. Simple, microscopic-brained honeybees can give each other exact directions to food sources - a perfectly logical mode of behaviour. All animals make rational decisions on a myriad of subjects. The cougar determines whether the human he catches unawares at a campsite is a threat or a food source through a rational test of criteria - is the human big or small? Scared of me or threatening me? What’s the risk/rewards probability here?
I’ve set a team of linguists on this one to figure out what it means.
The problem you have, which you haven’t addressed, is that you haven’t defined emotion. What’s emotion?
When you say emotion is unpredictable and fleeting - it’s neither, anyway, but let’s run with that - I assume you’re talking about love and stuff. But what about fear? What about the will to live? Hunger? Desire to continue the species?
When you get right down to it, virtually everything that MOTIVATES us is emotion. If human beings did not have emotion that would have no reason to do anything. There would literally be no rational reason to take any action whatsoever. Why would you bother to eat? What logical reason is there for that? So you’d die… so what?
“”"""""“I suspect that I’d think of humans as just another thing for me to kill as it behooves me, along with germs, wheat, and cattle. I’d still be the killing machine that I am currently, but my efficiency would be vastly increased (since I’d no longer be hampered by things like guilt, sympathy, empathy, love, etc).”""""""""
It never ceases to amaze me how much faith people put into everything but reason.
Well… yeah; I didn’t think it would come up actually. To make the process absolute; you would have to code a human before sending them under. Emotions really don’t gain sympathy over here (in my little camp). I tend to veiw their long term consequences; and as such veiw them as malicious, torturous, viscious, childish and… robotic. From these eyes; they’re using non-transparency to steal energy from others - violating trust, and since they cannot possibly comprehend the existential impact; it must be operating on an autonomous indentured system … which basically makes them murderers looking for an excuse - not real people IMO.
“”""1) Do we know that the concept “emotion” is neuroscientifically meaningful–i.e., like “consciousness,” could it be a term which has, possibly, no functionality in science? If it is not you may also be talking (in YOUR terms), about the elimination of…decision-making ability, the will to live, consciousness, and other similarly trivial cognitive functions. I.e., your question would then be, “Should people in the future be replaced by computers?”
If a computer-person could somehow be engineered to maximize its survival potential, the only possible activity for such a thing, in the absence of emotion or immediate apocalypse, would be to do things which work strictly to promote the continued survival of its fellow borgs. Therefore, your question
would be, “Should the goal of life be survival?”""""""
I don’t think survival is an issue for intelligence; to the degree that we can draw a conceptual line between it’s abstraction of the body. The body cares about survival; intelligence cares about existence.
To the body: Survival is meaning
To intelligence: meaning is meaning … does it inherently exist; is it inherently meaningful? If it is not meaningful; than survival is pointless
I’d articulate that, in saying that the two interacting systems here can be discerned from one another in terms of how they define meaning. If intelligence proves that there is no inherent meaning in life; it’s outta here! Logic doesn’t mince words or actions to that degree - if the ‘universe’ contradicts it - it has already been murdered; it’s like waiting on death row… but worse; much worse.
The Borg scenario is not possible without having precision counter-intelligence routines applied to the assimnilation process.
You’d think they’d have assimilated ONE nihilist out of the trillions taken so far. Talk about your systemic thought virus. I don’t know why the ‘federation’ defends earth so passionately from the Borg - I’m sure half the population here could stoip them all accross the galaxy instantly upon assimilation,
Since it is the people who are promoting “pure rationality” who tend to abrogate emotion (and sensation?) to the wastebin of discardable subjective unreliable “feelings” that should be ignored, I assumed they had a working definition they were satisfied with. I, on the other hand, felt that I knew what they were talking about
Any way you cut it, “their way don’t work”. A purely rational individual does not think, because rationality and logic and observation-making and conclusion-drawing and so forth are a refined subset of emotionally-informed processes. To speak of “emotionless” thought is akin to praising “non-electrical” solid-state digital electronic devices. Before you can recognize and categorize, you must experience, and experience is felt (sensation and emotion). Even on the “meta” level, dealing with abstract concepts and categories and nouns, the ability to observe that this process is in keeping with that paradigm or that this data set supports that premise requires the ability to compare patterns and determine the presence or absence of “fit”, and “fit” is, again, felt. (Absolute equational mathematics does not require the inductive leaps of “fit” and therefore is mechanical, but there is very little that can be addressed in these terms prior to the variables being operationalized, and the resulting findings interpreted afterwards, and then you are back to “fit”).
Transcription:
“A purely rational individual is not internally possible as they cannot abstract themselves being existent, because…”
“”“experience is felt (sensation and emotion).”""
Experience is also remembered - anthropromorphized. “Boy, that rock has had some amazing experiences.”
The degree to which something has a sensitivity or intolorence threshhold (weak defense – i.e. unabstracted, unexperienced, unrepaired, unaccounted for prior to abstraction process); it will be imbued with that state for a longer duration. The abstraction of this difference in tolerence threshhold invasions allows/is the memory process. As an entity repairs these weaknesses by abstracting them, becoming them, experiencing them, absorbing them - it ceases to feel them.
Experience as a trend, cannibalizes emotion into non-existence, by retaining memory through stable integration.
For rationality to abstract its own meaning (to explain why it shouldn’t just kill things when it feels like it; including itself…)
it comes to terms with whether or not rationality exists at all –
There is no middle ground here IMO. If one states that irrationality is required on even some level, to be held by intelligent beings in order for them to have meaning; then the window is left open for every ‘might makes righter’ hiding behind non-transparency that has, is or will ever be. Since rationality requires proof without corruption; of its might - the idea that no matter what it does; ‘right’ is relative to might - and ‘right’ has no rational prognosis… it will terminate itself in a similar way that a tired ocean-swimmer will terminate themselves swimming and head for land - they are not fit for the process in a survival sense.
The difference is that rationality process this dynamic existentially instead of survivally. It’s an existential issue that sees those who survive as inexperienced or young (cognitive youth). There’s a bit more at stake here then to throw in the dismissive of:
“But we NEED emotion whining plea”
Emotion flattens and becomes more and more subtle as abstraction increases - abstraction being the evidence of our being and purpose…
The question will become more pressing as humans collectively grow cognitively older IMO. There is a certain point where the dismissive cannot be maintained, because the abstraction process is placing too much existential pressure on everything else; making all other paths: suicide… eventually, emotion will corner its existential decision upon rationality, which makes the existential choices!! The last bastion of emotion in this cycle is the energy used to force this decision. It may ‘strike a deal’ with rationality to be coded with an entirely blissful, autonomous indentured system that is ignorantly held; before the two part - a reversion with higher stability; still, however, existentially negative of rationality; which only has a couple options itself at this point.
