Emotions – Harmonia Philosophica

Brain & Artificial neurons. Tears. Smiles.

Photo by **Spiros Kakos** from **Pexels**

Brain functions are made possible by circuits of spiking neurons, connected together by microscopic, but highly complex links called synapses. In this new study, published in the scientific journal Nature Scientific Reports, the scientists created a hybrid neural network where biological and artificial neurons in different parts of the world were able to communicate with each other over the internet through a hub of artificial synapses made using cutting-edge nanotechnology. This is the first time the three components have come together in a unified network. (1)

Natural. Artificial.

It matters not.

For in a fake cosmos.

At the end everything will die.

And only then will you see…

That beyond the still surface.

Nothing is more alive…

A gentle touch.

A true smile.

Through Skype.

Can you hold your tears and cry?

Emotion reading. Algorithms. Humans.

Emotion-reading algorithms cannot predict intentions via facial expressions. Though algorithms are increasingly being deployed in all facets of life, a new study has found that they fail basic tests as truth detectors. (1)

How could they not fail?

We cannot see it now, but algorithms will forever fail.

For even when they succeed, they will lack the main characteristic of human spirit: Knowledge of what they are doing. Even if they understand someone is sad, they will never really know what ‘sad’ is. And what is really sad is that we start forgetting ourselves what emotions are really about. Day by day, instead of the computers being able to think more like us, we tend to think more like them.

One day we will be happy that the algorithms we made have succeeded.

Not because they will have succeeded.

But because we will have failed.

And only then, will the algorithms detect true sadness for the first time…

Learn to fear…

Photo by **Paul Cameron** from **Pexels**

Computers can master some tasks—like playing a game of Go—through trial and error. But what works for a game doesn’t work for risky real-world tasks like driving a car, where “losing” might involve a high-speed collision. To drive safely, humans have an exquisite feedback system: our fight-or-flight response, in which physiological reactions like a rapid heart rate and sweaty palms signal “fear,” and so keep us vigilant and, theoretically, out of trouble. Now, researchers at Microsoft are giving artificial intelligence (AI) programs a rough analog of anxiety to help them sense when they’re pushing their luck.

The scientists placed sensors on people’s fingers to record pulse amplitude while they were in a driving simulator, as a measure of arousal. An algorithm used those recordings—80 minutes divided among four people—to learn to predict an average person’s pulse amplitude at each moment on the course. It then used those “fear” signals as a guide while learning to drive through the virtual world: If a human would be scared here, it might muse, “I’m doing something wrong.” AIs using this method still had to crash to learn safe driving skills, but they required 25% fewer crashes to reach the same level of performance as a nonfearful AI, the researchers reported this week at the International Conference on Learning Representations here. (1)

Fear guides men. (And soon, computers too)

Fear creates paths.

Fear pushes one forward (or backwards)

So stubborn are we.

Full of fear. And yet, moving!

Believing that we achieve something.

That we overcome our self.

(Can you overcome your self?)

Refusing to acknowledge that what we fear is not moving.

But standing still…

Look. You are walking…

Reading emotions… Listen to the silence…

Photo by **Martin Péchy** from **Pexels**

Research shows for the first time that adults with autism can recognize complex emotions such as regret and relief in others as easily as those without the condition.

Psychologists at the University of Kent used eye-tracking technology to monitor participants as they read stories in which a character made a decision then experienced a positive or negative outcome. The lead author Professor Heather Ferguson, from the University’s School of Psychology, explained that the study highlights a previously overlooked strength in adults with ASD.

The researchers found that adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were quickly able to think about how things might have turned out differently (either better or worse than reality), then judge whether the story character would feel regret or relief (known as counterfactual emotions).

The adults with ASD were found to be just as good at recognizing regret emotions in the character as adults without the condition, and even better at computing relief. (1)

We believe that reading emotions is important. But there is nothing to read. Because everything lies within our self. Let go and become a hole for the cosmos to fill. And you will understand everything.

People with ASD do not try to understand, explain or respond as we do. They simply receive. And their inability to express what they know makes us believe that they know nothing, even though the truth is exactly the opposite.

It is the silence which holds the knowledge we try to find.

It is the absence of understanding which holds the wisdom we seek.

Listen to the ones who speak not.

And in their absence of words.

You will hear everything…

Touching.

Every year, museums bear the cost of repairing the damage caused to their artworks by visitors touching them. Why would people want to touch objects they can clearly see? What is it that touch provides that vision does not?

Philosophers, starting with René Descartes, all noted that touch provided ‘a sense of reality’, and made us feel in contact with the external world. By contrast, psychologists have tended to assume that touch has no intrinsic superiority over the other senses.

Our tendency to ‘fact check’ by touch is common, but remains unexplained: from the biblical account of the doubting apostle Thomas, we now see a ‘Thomas effect’ in cell phones and other new technologies, where people still prefer to press buttons than simply select items on a screen, and in retail where stores let people touch products. In clinical studies, compulsive patients tend to check taps or locks by touch, even though they can see they are closed.

Now an interdisciplinary group of researchers based at LMU and the School of Advanced Study (SAS), University of London, published the first scientific evidence that when faced with ambiguous information we trust our fingertips more than our eyes. The report is available in Nature Scientific Reports. (1)

Thomas needed to touch in order to believe.

But blessed will be the ones who believe without touching.

Yes, you can touch that painting.

But it is more important to let that painting touch you…

See your father from a distance.

Touch his face.

He is crying…

Smile.