The Emotion Machine

raison nous fait agir.” Rene Descartes, in Discours de la methode (1637)

150

Chapter III of The Descent of Man

151

Turing described these “universal” machines before any modern computers were built. For more details about how these work, see http://mathworld.wolfram.com/UniversalTur ingMachine.html.

152

This switching usually happens so quickly that we don’t notice it; this is a typical instance of the Immanence Illusion [See §4-3.1.]

153

There is a detailed theory of how this works in §24.6 Direction-Nemes of The Society of Mind.

154

It was recently discovered only recently that people often do not perceive some very large changes in a scene. See [give reference] for astonishing demonstrations of this.

155

From http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/Frames/frames.html

156

See Chapter 3 of William Calvin, How Brains Think, Basic Books, 1966.

157

For more details about the relations among different nearby things, see chapter 24 of SoM, which also tries to explain why the shapes of things don’t seem to change when we look at them from different directions—as well as why things don’t seem to change their locations when you move your eyes.

158

I wonder if Hume had some such idea when he said: “All belief of matter of fact or real existence is derived merely from some object, present to the memory or senses, and a customary conjunction between that and some other object. … [This results from] a species of natural instincts, which no reasoning or process of the thought and understanding is able either to produce or to prevent.”—David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748.

159

David Hume, ibid. Part II.

160

Hume was especially concerned with this question of how evidence can lead to conclusions: “It is only after a long course of uniform experiments in any kind, that we attain a firm reliance and security with regard to a particular event. Now where is that process of reasoning which, from one instance, draws a conclusion, so different from that which it infers from a hundred instances that are nowise different from that single one? I cannot find, I cannot imagine any such reasoning.”

161

Note that this is a difference-engine ‘in reverse,’ because it changes the internal description, instead of changing the actual situation. See “Verbal expression” in SoM §22.10).

162

Robert Stickgold et al., Cognitive Neuroscience (Vol. 12, No. 2) in March 2000, also Nature Neuroscience (Vol. 3, No. 12) in December 2000.