From: gts (gts@optexinc.com)
Date: Mon Sep 16 2002 - 11:42:22 MDT
Lee Corbin wrote:
>>> To me, yes, it's very questionable to say that a beating heart
>>> is human behavior, but not quite as outrageous as to say
>>> that one's heart beats for a motive.
gts wrote:
>> I will continue to classify internal biological processes
>> as "motivated" only if you continue to classify them as
>> "human behavior."
>
> I'm confused. My preference would be to avoid calling
> human heart beats human *behavior* and to also avoid
> calling internal biological processes *motivated*.
If that is your preference then you should stop trying to call internal
biological processes "behavior," as you did when you challenged my axiom
by citing the human heart-beat as an example that seems to defy it. :)
However, again, I am prepared to defend the notion that internal
biological processes are unconsciously motivated behaviors.
> You do agree then that "the only human motivations are
> the [ones like greed, love, etc.]? Good. Then we are
> closer to complete agreement. As a concession signifying
> my good faith, I will throw in "the human body is motivated
> to beat a human's heart" iff it can be said that mechanical
> devices without intelligence can have motives.
I've been thinking carefully about the "mechanical devices with possible
motives," i.e., robots, and here is my conclusion: A robot should be
considered an extension of its owner/creator. With respect to this
discussion: it is true, as Rafal once pointed out in another thread,
that the robots in Robot Wars probably do not experience the pleasure of
reward (which is essentially identical to saying they are not motivated
to act as they do) but it is also clearly true that their owner/creators
*do* experience reward and pleasure when their robots act appropriately
according to their designs. So then the behavior of a robot *IS* linked
intimately to motivation and driven by the pursuit of the reward
experience. The primary difference between your arm and your robot is
that the behavior of the latter is remotely controlled. Your arm is
controlled via an immediate biological connection while your robot is
controlled remotely in time (by some previously devised algorithm)
and/or controlled remotely in space (by a radio control device, for
example). In all other respects your arm *is* a robot.
>> I think what is needed here is a larger definition of "you".
>
> This is the rub, all right. I believe that I oppose an
> enlarged definition.
Yes, you seem to oppose a larger definition of "you" that would include
your physical body and your most primitive drives such as the drive to
live and be well. Why is that? (I can sympathize... a close friend once
told me as a sort of back-handed compliment that I am little more than a
mind that drags its body through life. :) [He was ribbing me for wanting
to pursue some intellectual endeavor of mine rather than go work out at
the gym with him.] My friend's criticism was right on the money; the
truth is that we are as much physical beings as we are mental beings.)
You are your body as much as you are your mind. Even your mind itself
cannot (in my view) be considered separately from your brain, at least
with current technology. Any future technology that might inject the
mind into an inorganic substrate would require that the inorganic
substrate also be encoded digitally or in some other way with the
information that describes the physical attributes of the brain,
including and especially the DNA that controls gene expression in each
neuron and thus thought itself. (This idea is where Rafal and I parted
company, because it seems that he like you would like to think the human
psyche can exist separately from the information contained in the genes
of the cells of the brain that hosts it).
>> You are far more than your conscious thoughts and motivations.
>> You are a physical person with an unconscious motivation to
>> stay physically alive and well. Your heart does not beat
>> itself, separately from you. YOU beat your heart.
>
> This is an excellent point, due to your following
>
>> We've all heard stories of ill people whose vital organs stopped
>> functioning when, because of their infirmity, they finally "gave up
>> hope" and "lost the motivation to live." It's a real phenomenon.
>
> It's an absolutely *astounding* phenomenon. Evidently both Adams
> and Jefferson strove mightily to make it to July 4th, back in 1826.
Good, so why can you not agree that the heart is motivated by you to
keep beating?
Your addendum sent offlist:
> I'm implying there that the crucial difference is
> *consciousness*, and we've already agreed that there
> are many unconscious motivations.
Right.
> But I claim (in
> the post) that unconscious motivations are not of
> the sort that do these kinds of things [e.g., heat beats]
But yet I think you've agreed above that a conscious decision to stop
trying to live can often cause one to die. This would imply that these
motivations about living, conscious or unconscious, are no different
than any other type of motivation.
> In any case, I would say that though I would be highly motivated
> to beat my heart if I could, I cannot consciously do so and so
> therefore we should say that I am not so motivated.
Try applying your reasoning above to your breath rather than your
heartbeat. Here we see an internal process that you *can* control
consciously, and which you will control unconsciously at other times.
-gts
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