Part II
Thursday, October 30th, 2008 by Tobias Deutsch
Proceedings of Emulating the Mind (ENF 2007)
Abstract
List of Articles
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A Brief Overview of Artificial Intelligence Focusing on Computational Models of Emotions
Brigitte Palensky (né Lorenz), Etienne BarnardAbstract
Computational models of emotions promise to extend the capabilities of artificial intelligence in a number of ways. We review several such models, and show how these models emphasize different aspects of the interactions between emotion and behavior. These recent developments are placed in the context of earlier approaches, ranging from those derived from symbolic logic, through statistical models, to the more recent interest in embodied agents. We present evidence that significant deficiencies of these approaches may be overcome through the use of suitable emotion-based models.Brigitte Palensky and Etienne Barnard. A brief overview of artificial intelligence focusing on computational models of emotions. In Dietmar Dietrich, Georg Fodor, Gerhard Zucker, and Dietmar Bruckner, editors, Simulating the Mind – A Technical Neuropsychoanalytical Approach, pages 76 – 99. Springer, Wien, 1 edition, 2009.@incollection{PB09, author = “Brigitte Palensky and Etienne Barnard”, title = “A Brief Overview of Artificial Intelligence Focusing on Computational Models of Emotions”, pages = “76 — 99”, booktitle = “Simulating the {M}ind – {A} {T}echnical {N}europsychoanalytical {A}pproach”, editor = “Dietmar Dietrich and Georg Fodor and Gerhard Zucker and Dietmar Bruckner”, publisher = “Springer, Wien”, year = “2009”, edition = 1}
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Considering a Technical Realization of a Neuropsychoanalytical Model of the Mind – A Theoretical Framework
Dietmar Dietrich, Georg Fodor, Wolfgang Kastner and Mihaela UlieruAbstract
As foundation for a paradigm shift in artificial intelligence we propose a bionic model that encapsulates psychoanalytic principles of the human mind based on which we map Sigmund Freud’s model of the “psychical apparatus” in combination with Luria’s dynamic neuropsychology into a machine. Motivated by the first paper of this book which outlined the state-of-the-art in artificial intelligence we suggest future research directions and obstacles that need to be overcome when moving forward towards building conscious machines that will be even able to perceive and act on emotions and feelings. This paper outlines the motivation behind our joint effort where scientists of the fields of psychology, pedagogy and psychoanalysis on the one hand, and engineers on the other hand are involved. As first outcome of this joint work, a model for a technical realization of a neuropsychoanalytical model of the mind is presented. Ongoing activities and research results based on this model are shown in the following parts of this book.Dietmar Dietrich, Georg Fodor, Wolfgang Kastner, and Mihaela Ulieru. Considering a technical realization of a neuropsychoanalytical model of the mind – a theoretical framework. In Dietmar Dietrich, Georg Fodor, Gerhard Zucker, and Dietmar Bruckner, editors, Simulating the Mind – A Technical Neuropsychoanalytical Approach, pages 99 – 115. Springer, Wien, 1 edition, 2009.@incollection{DFKU09, author = “Dietmar Dietrich and Georg Fodor and Wolfgang Kastner and Mihaela Ulieru”, title = “Considering a Technical Realization of a Neuropsychoanalytical Model of the Mind – A Theoretical Framework”, pages = “99 — 115”, booktitle = “Simulating the {M}ind – {A} {T}echnical {N}europsychoanalytical {A}pproach”, editor = “Dietmar Dietrich and Georg Fodor and Gerhard Zucker and Dietmar Bruckner”, publisher = “Springer, Wien”, year = “2009”, edition = 1}
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What is the “Mind”? A Neuro-Psychoanalytical Approach
Mark SolmsAbstract
The brain is the object of neurological science. The object of psychological science is the mind. Few people would disagree that the mind and the brain are ontologically indistinguishable. This begs the question: what is the “mind” and how does it differ from the brain? In my view, the mind is distinguishable from the brain only in terms of observational perspective: the mind is the brain perceived subjectively. Psychoanalysis is a branch of psychology that has taken this perspective seriously.
Psychoanalytic study of subjective experience has resulted in a model of the mind which can be reduced to five components. (1) The driving principle of life is survival in the service of reproduction. (2) The function of the mind is to register survival/reproductive needs and satisfy them in the world. (3) Since the same could be said of the brain, the mind comes into its own by registering such satisfactions through feelings. Feelings – pleasures and unpleasures – register the brain’s biological successes and failures. This is the basis of consciousness. (4) Feelings generate the values from which intentionality is derived. Intentions boil down to wishes to repeat previous pleasurable experiences. This requires memory. (5) Experience, registered in memory, demands increasingly complex decisions about how pleasures can be obtained in reality. This in turn demands response flexibility, which is achieved through thinking. Thinking is experimental action. It depends fundamentally upon response inhibition. This is the basis of “agency”. Agency is the freedom not to act.
Attempts to manufacture artificial minds must replicate these functional principles.
Mark Solms. What is the ’mind’? a neuro-psychoanalytical approach. In Dietmar Dietrich, Georg Fodor, Gerhard Zucker, and Dietmar Bruckner, editors, Simulating the Mind – A Technical Neuropsychoanalytical Approach, pages 115 – 123. Springer, Wien, 1 edition, 2009.@incollection{Sol09, author = “Mark Solms”, title = “What is the ‘Mind’? A Neuro-Psychoanalytical Approach”, pages = “115 — 123”, booktitle = “Simulating the {M}ind – {A} {T}echnical {N}europsychoanalytical {A}pproach”, editor = “Dietmar Dietrich and Georg Fodor and Gerhard Zucker and Dietmar Bruckner”, publisher = “Springer, Wien”, year = “2009”, edition = 1}
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Machines in the Ghost
Aaron SlomanAbstract
Ideas developed by the author over the last 35 years, about relations between the study of natural minds and the design of artificial minds, and the requirements for both sorts of minds, are summarised. The most important point is that natural minds are information-processing virtual machines produced by evolution. Much detailed investigation of the many kinds of things minds can do is required in order to determine what sort of information-processing machine a human mind is. It is not yet clear whether producing artificial minds with similar powers will require new kinds of computing machinery or merely much faster and bigger computers than we have now. Some things once thought hard to implement in artificial minds, such as affective states and processes, including emotions, can be construed as aspects of the control mechanisms of minds. This view of mind is largely compatible in principle with psychoanalytic theory, though some details are very different. Psychoanalytic therapy is analogous to run-time debugging of a virtual machine. In order to do psychotherapy well, we need to understand the architecture of the machine well enough to know what sorts of bugs can develop and which ones can be removed, or have their impact reduced, and how. Without such deep understanding treatment will be a hit-and-miss affair.Aaron Sloman. Machines in the ghost. In Dietmar Dietrich, Georg Fodor, Gerhard Zucker, and Dietmar Bruckner, editors, Simulating the Mind – A Technical Neuropsychoanalytical Approach, pages 124 – 149. Springer, Wien, 1 edition, 2009.@incollection{Slo09, author = “Aaron Sloman”, title = “Machines in the Ghost”, pages = “124 — 149”, booktitle = “Simulating the {M}ind – {A} {T}echnical {N}europsychoanalytical {A}pproach”, editor = “Dietmar Dietrich and Georg Fodor and Gerhard Zucker and Dietmar Bruckner”, publisher = “Springer, Wien”, year = “2009”, edition = 1}
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Simulating the Primal Affective Mentalities of the Mammalian Brain: A Fugue on the Emotional Feelings of Mental Life and Implications for AI-Robotics
Jaak PankseppAbstract
In order to simulate the operations of the human mind we must consider both the genetic and epigenetic construction of the human brain. We must be clear about what is genetically fundamental and what is epigenetically derivative. Perhaps the most accurate simulations need to get the genetically-provided subsystems properly represented in Read only Memory (ROM) as key operating systems and to configure Random Access Memory Space (RAM) in such a way that developmental epigenetic programming can simulate the natural ecologically and culturally constrained developmental landscapes that transpire in neocortical maturation of the human child. The foundations of the higher mind are intimately linked to the genetically prescribed infrastructure of the lower, affective mind. Basic social emotional systems will need to have the greatest attention, in order to conceptualize how intersubjective dynamics and hence human language and thought gradually emerge through epigenetic programming of higher regions of the brain. In my estimation, it becomes critical to have clear visions of how emotional and other affectively valenced feelings are actually created in biological brains. The Affective Neuroscience approach envisions seven basic emotional operating systems, embedded within a core-self and self-related infor-mation processing infrastructure. The basic emotional systems may generate large-scale neurodynamics that provide attractor landscapes for harvesting information from the external world that is especially important for survival. In other words, a series of emotional-instinctual action circuits are built into the brain as large-scale network functions that may need to be described in terms of “state-spaces” that regulate “information-processing” algorithms. Thereby most cognitive mentality may epigenetically arise from a solid, genetically based foundation of emotionalaffective processes. A persistent dilemma for computational modeling of mind is that, at present, the only experiencing minds that currently exist in the world are ultra-complex network-based brain capacities, based unambiguously on certain biophysical and neurochemical properties that are intimately linked to the dynamics of living bodies. Can such affective-emotional properties of biological brains be closely emulated in virtual machines? Can a simulation that does not possess any of the relevant biochemical/biophysical properties ever be substantively simulated on non-biological platforms? Only future work can tell. Such issues cannot be solved “in principle” at the present time. I will cover this topic in fugue fashion, repeating previously shared arguments by adding new dimensions of complexity in successive layers.Jaak Panksepp. Simulating the primal affective mentalities of the mammalian brain: A fugue on the emotional feelings of mental life and implications for ai-robotics. In Dietmar Dietrich, Georg Fodor, Gerhard Zucker, and Dietmar Bruckner, editors, Simulating the Mind – A Technical Neuropsychoanalytical Approach, pages 149 – 177. Springer, Wien, 2009.@incollection{Pan09, author = “Jaak Panksepp”, title = “Simulating the Primal Affective Mentalities of the Mammalian Brain: A Fugue on the Emotional Feelings of Mental Life and Implications for AI-Robotics”, pages = “149 — 177”, booktitle = “Simulating the {M}ind – {A} {T}echnical {N}europsychoanalytical {A}pproach”, editor = “Dietmar Dietrich and Georg Fodor and Gerhard Zucker and Dietmar Bruckner”, publisher = “Springer, Wien”, year = “2009”, edition = first}
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Cognitive and Affective Automation: Machines Using the Psychoanalytic Model of the Human Mind
Peter Palensky, Brigitte Palensky (né Lorenz) and Andrea ClariciAbstract
Automation systems of the future are envisioned as dealing with massive amounts of potentially unreliable data and expected to distill reliable information and decisions out of that. Classical mathematics – filters or correlations – and classical artificial intelligence (AI) – such as artificial neural networks or intelligent agents – can substantially help to deal with this problem. There are, however, examples in nature that are capable of focusing on just the right thing in just the right moment, even when the system is overloaded with useless other information: higher living creatures, especially humans.
It is the goal of this paper to follow a bionic path towards an intelligent automation system. The chosen approach tries to combine the latest findings of neurology, psychoanalysis and computer engineering to create an artifact, capable of perceiving, storing, remembering, evaluating and recognizing situations and scenarios, consisting of an arbitrary number of sensor information.
Peter Palensky, Brigitte Pa lensky, and Andrea Clarici. Cognitive and affective automation: Machines using the psychoanalytic model of the human mind. In Dietmar Dietrich, Georg Fodor, Gerhard Zucker, and Dietmar Bruckner, editors, Simulating the Mind – A Technical Neuropsychoanalytical Approach, pages 178 – 227. Springer, Wien, 1 edition, 2009.@incollection{PPC09, author = “Peter Palensky and Brigitte Palensky and Andrea Clarici”, title = “Cognitive and Affective Automation: Machines Using the Psychoanalytic Model of the Human Mind”, pages = “178 — 227”, booktitle = “Simulating the {M}ind – {A} {T}echnical {N}europsychoanalytical {A}pproach”, editor = “Dietmar Dietrich and Georg Fodor and Gerhard Zucker and Dietmar Bruckner”, publisher = “Springer, Wien”, year = “2009”, edition = 1}
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Issues at the Interface of Artificial Intelligence and Psychoanalysis: Emotion, Consciousness, Transference
David OldsAbstract
To comment on the emerging interests shared by psychoanalysts and the current generation of robotics engineers from the point of view of a psychoanalyst, I will take up three topics where I think the two disciplines may have something to offer each other. (1) The importance of emotions in the cognitive apparatus, and in the potential design of AI machines, (2) The possibility of consciousness in advanced robots, and (3) The possibility of the psychoanalytic notion of transference in our relationships with robots.David Olds. Issues at the interface of artificial intelligence and psychoanalysis: Emotion, consciousness, transference. In Dietmar Dietrich, Georg Fodor, Gerhard Zucker, and Dietmar Bruckner, editors, Simulating the Mind – A Technical Neuropsychoanalytical Approach, pages 227 – 237. Springer, Wien, 1 edition, 2009.@incollection{Old09, author = “David Olds”, title = “Issues at the Interface of Artificial Intelligence and Psychoanalysis: Emotion, Consciousness, Transference”, pages = “227 — 237”, booktitle = “Simulating the {M}ind – {A} {T}echnical {N}europsychoanalytical {A}pproach”, editor = “Dietmar Dietrich and Georg Fodor and Gerhard Zucker and Dietmar Bruckner”, publisher = “Springer, Wien”, year = “2009”, edition = 1}
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The Prometheus Phantasy – Functions of the Human Psyche for Technical Systems
Elisabeth Brainin and Gerhard Zucker (né Pratl)Abstract
Technical systems support us in our daily life and have been improved ever since. Still the available systems today are not able to understand their environment in a way that is similar to human understanding. Enabling technical systems to interact with the real world and with human users in a more human-like way is a challenging research topic. To do so we need models of human abilities. We need to understand how humans perceive their environment, how knowledge about the environment is created, stored and accessed, how motility works, how decisions are taken and actions are executed. And we need technical translations of these models that allow us to implement them in a technical, not a biological way. This paper identifies principles and functions of the human psychic apparatus that make up a set of basic requirements for developing technical systems that an perceive and interact with the environment – including human beings – in a more human-like way.Elisabeth Brainin and Gerhard Zucker. The prometheus phantasy – functions of the human psyche for technical systems. In Dietmar Dietrich, Georg Fodor, Gerhard Zucker, and Dietmar Bruckner, editors, Simulating the Mind – A Technical Neuropsychoanalytical Approach, pages 239 – 251. Springer, Wien, 1 edition, 2009.@incollection{BZ09, author = “Elisabeth Brainin and Gerhard Zucker”, title = “The Prometheus Phantasy – Functions of the Human Psyche for Technical Systems”, pages = “239 — 251”, booktitle = “Simulating the {M}ind – {A} {T}echnical {N}europsychoanalytical {A}pproach”, editor = “Dietmar Dietrich and Georg Fodor and Gerhard Zucker and Dietmar Bruckner”, publisher = “Springer, Wien”, year = “2009”, edition = 1}
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Return of the Zombie – Neuropsychoanalysis, Consciousness, and the Engineering of Psychic Functions
Yoram YovellAbstract
Neurobiologists and philosophers tend to equate the mind with consciousness. Accordingly, the mind-brain problem has been formulated as “finding the neural correlates of consciousness.” In their efforts to emulate the mind, engineers are attempting to design machines that would possess some of the properties of the human mind. Since building technical systems that are conscious appears out of reach at this time, it might be useful to examine whether indeed being conscious is synonymous with having a mind. Neuropsychoanalysis suggests that consciousness is not synonymous with the mind. It views consciousness as an unstable property of one part of the mind. This definition has considerable explanatory power. There are situations in which high-level, complex, and distinctly human cognitive and emotional processing of information may occur without conscious awareness. Furthermore, clinical evidence suggests that consciousness is not a unitary phenomenon, and it may occur on several levels. It might therefore be possible to design and build technical systems that are not conscious but nevertheless emulate important aspects of the mind.Yoram Yovell. Return of the zombie – neuropsychoanalysis, consciousness, and the engineering of psychic functions. In Dietmar Dietrich, Georg Fodor, Gerhard Zucker, and Dietmar Bruckner, editors, Simulating the Mind – A Technical Neuropsychoanalytical Approach, pages 251 – 259. Springer, Wien, 1 edition, 2009.@incollection{Yov09, author = “Yoram Yovell”, title = “Return of the Zombie – Neuropsychoanalysis, Consciousness, and the Engineering of Psychic Functions”, pages = “251 — 259”, booktitle = “Simulating the {M}ind – {A} {T}echnical {N}europsychoanalytical {A}pproach”, editor = “Dietmar Dietrich and Georg Fodor and Gerhard Zucker and Dietmar Bruckner”, publisher = “Springer, Wien”, year = “2009”, edition = 1}
List of Authors in Alphabetic Order
- Etienne Barnard Meraka Institute, Pretoria, South Africa
- Elisabeth Brainin Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, Austria
- Andrea Clarici University of Trieste, Italy
- Dietmar Dietrich Vienna University of Technology, Austria
- Georg Fodor Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, Austria; University of Cape Town, South Africa
- Wolfgang Kastner Vienna University of Technology, Austria
- David Olds Columbia University, New York, United States
- Brigitte Palensky (né Lorenz) Vienna University of Technology, Austria
- Peter Palensky University of Pretoria, South Africa; Berkeley National Laboratory, CA, United States
- Jaak Panksepp Veterinary Medicine Washington State University, United States
- Aaron Sloman The University Of Birmingham, United Kingdom
- Mark Solms International Neuropsychoanalysis Centre, London, UK; University of Cape Town, South Africa
- Mihaela Ulieru Canada Research Chair; The University Of New Brunswick, Canada
- Yoram Yovell University of Haifa, Israel
- Gerhard Zucker (né Pratl) Vienna University of Technology, Austria