Marvin Minsky "The Emotion Machine": Chapter 2 "Conscience, Values ​​and Own Ideals"

§2-5 Learning and pleasure

When Carol tried to fill her bucket, she tried several experiments before she got her way through the use of a spoon. When she realized that her goal had been achieved, she felt the satisfaction and the feeling of the award she received, and then these pleasant feelings somehow helped her learn and remember the experience. So this process involved many steps:

• Carol filled her bucket with a spoon.
• She understood that her goal had been achieved.
• Then she felt satisfied with her success.
• Then, somehow, this satisfaction helped her to remember the experience.

Now we are happy that she felt satisfied, but what functions are provided with all these feelings, and why does this process require so many steps? What role can pleasure play in the memory creation process? Why didn't Carol just remember which method worked and which one didn't?

The answer is that “memorizing” is not an easy process at all. At first glance, it may seem that this process is quite simple - just throw the note in the box, and then take it when necessary. But when we consider this process in more detail, we see that it contains a large number of steps: Initially, you should choose what information this note should contain and find an adequate way to present this information, and then you should give this note a set of links, such that after saving parts of this message, you could reassemble them.

Philistine: Some say that our brain remembers everything this way, if you can't remember an event, then some part of the brain suppresses this memory.

This myth of “photographic memory” is not supported by evidence. Many experiments come to a consensus that we don’t remember very much. [See §6-2]

Student: What about the old idea that says that during our achievements we simply “strengthen” the reactions that led to this successful outcome? In other words, we simply associate a problem with which we encountered actions that led us to a solution.

This is a simplified way of describing how learning can work when we consider it from the outside, but it does not explain what is happening inside the body. For both the “problem we are facing,” and the “actions were taken” are simple units that we can connect. Therefore, you must first choose some method to describe the “if” and “that” connections of a particular pair of events. Then the quality of what you learn will depend on the nature of both of these descriptions.

Thus, in order for Carol to learn, her brain must create some descriptions of the methods that worked - as well as, perhaps, the methods that failed. But after her efforts to fill the cup, what kind of action should deserve a reward because of the achievement of ultimate success? Should Carol explain her success by the presence of a pair of shoes that she wore, or the place where this event occurred, or the presence of overcast or clear weather? What if she smiled while using the fork, but frowned while using the spoon. What prevents her from studying irrelevant rules, such as: “To fill a cup, you need to frown?”
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In other words, when people learn, it is not only about creating relationships, but also about building structures that link relationships, and no learning theory can be complete if it does not take this mechanism into account. In addition, we may need to present not only these external events, but also some related mental events.

Thus, Carol needs some kind of technique to decide which thoughts from those she thinks should be presented in what she remembers. And she will need some way of keeping these records so she can remember when she needs them.

Student: You still have not explained when feelings arise, for example, pleasure from the success of Carol

In everyday life, words such as: suffering, pleasure, fun and grief are used rather routinely, as if these words corresponded to the mental state of people we know. But when we are asked to describe these states of mind, we are usually lost and confused in words, because the mental states that we call feelings are the most complex cascade of processes. For example, it would seem that we are talking about pleasure, when certain resources recognize some processes that help us determine which of our recent activities should get paid for our recent success. Toward the end of the book, we will return to the question of how we do this “Award of Payments” and what effects gives us the feeling that we call pleasure.

§2-6. Conscience, values ​​and own ideals

“I never wanted to commit suicide, perhaps because I wanted to know more mathematics.” - Bertrand Russell

One of the things that distinguishes us from animals (with the exception of perhaps elephants) is the huge duration of our childhood. One consequence of this phenomenon is that no other species accumulates so much and such diverse types of knowledge, and no one seems to be approaching our human traditions and values.

What kind of person would you like to be? Are you careful and cautious, or bold and risky? Do you follow the crowd, or do you prefer to lead the crowd? Would you rather be calm or driven by passion? Such personal qualities depend, in part, on the heredity of a person. They are also formed by our social networks.

Once our connections with a particular person are formed, they begin to perform many functions. At first, they keep children close to their parents, which provides children with food, protection and communication. But also (if our theory is correct), relationships have a special impact on how children learn, providing each child with new ways of redistributing priorities. In addition, the self-aware emotions that come with these connections have other highly specific effects. Pride tends to make you more confident, more optimistic and adventurous, while shame makes you want to change yourself so that you will never again fall into such a state.

The next section discusses what happens when a child has no Impressors — and the result can be extremely deplorable. But grown-up children and adults can imagine how the Imprinter absent near them can react to their unusual actions or ideas, evaluating the intended new goal. We all know this experience: to predict (and then react to these expectations) what our Imprinter would do if he saw our actions, and then we give these sensations various names, such as “morality”, “conscience”, “knowledge of what is right and what is wrong. ”

To make such an “internal imprint”, the child must build some model that can predict the Imprinter's reaction. How could this child think of this model? First, he may not think about it at all, because the rest of his mind does not have access to these processes. Or this model may appear to the child as the presence of someone else in his mind, possibly in the form of an interlocutor. An imaginary imprinter can even be seen embodied in some external object — for example, a rag doll or a baby blanket. We discuss similar models in §9.

What if some other part of the child's brain can find a way to take control of a system that raises the priorities of its various goals? Then such a child could praise himself and with the help of such a relationship he could choose which goals should be supported, or the child could condemn himself and thereby create certain restrictions for himself.

At this stage, the child will, in fact, have its own internal value system, which is usually called the “conscience”. Perhaps Freud described a similar process when he assumed that a child could “introspect” the relationship between his parents. If a child can gain control of this system, he can become “ethically autonomous” in the sense that he can change his early sets of learned values. However, if the majority of these values ​​remain in force, their subsequent changes may lead to internal conflicts in which the child will oppose the settings received from his Imprints.

What determines which ideals will flourish within each individual human being? Every family, culture, club or group develops different social and moral codes, inventing some ways to assess what is right and what is not. These codes of conduct have a huge impact on all of our organizations. They form the customs, traditions and cultures of peoples, professions, clubs and religions. They can even make these institutions evaluate themselves above all others, and also make their members happy to die for them in endless series of battles and wars.

How do we develop these powerful standards and codes of conduct? Below I parody several philosophers:

Naturalist: I deeply believe that ethical values, by their nature, arise on their own. Of course, everyone should be good by nature, until such time as their mind is not destroyed due to education in unnatural conditions.

Rationalist: I am suspicious of such statements, because “deeply” and “self-evidently” apparently only means the following: “I cannot explain why I believe in this.”, And “I don't want to know what makes me to believe it. ”

PR Specialist: There is no absolute base on which our moral and ethical values ​​are built. All of them are based on social agreements and contracts that each of us makes with other people.

Socio-biologist: This is a fairly clear concept, except for one thing: no one remembers that he agreed to such things! The best idea is that the “morality” is based on the traits that we developed in ancient times, as certain breeds of dogs were bred so that they became attached only to one owner. In terms of people, we call this property “loyalty.”

No doubt, such features are partly based on genetic heritage, but they are also based on contagious "memes", that is, ideas that spread from one brain to another as part of the cultural heritage.

Fundamentalist: Our values ​​flow straight from inspired religious texts, and woe to those who violate them.

Theologian: Some ethical rules can be inferred from inference

Logic: Logic only helps us understand what is meant by the assumptions we make. She says nothing about how these assumptions can be used.

Mystic: Reasonings live only in the mind, and they are divorced from reality. You will never attain enlightenment until you learn not to think so much.

Sometimes a person can improve their skills by suppressing the desire to think about this ability. But if someone rejects most psychic criticism and relies too much on primitive instincts, this can slow down mental development.

Existentialist: Whatever goal you choose, you must ask yourself what purpose this goal serves and then you will be able to see your predicament: we are all stuck in a completely absurd world.

Sentimentalist: You are too concerned about the search for human goals. Just watch the children and you will see curiosity and playfulness. They are not looking for any specific goals, but are enjoying the search for something new and enjoying the discoveries made.

We like to think that children's play doesn’t serve anything, however, when children seem happy and free, it may just be a purposefulness hidden from their minds. You can see this manifestation more clearly when you try to remove them from your tasks. They explore their worlds in order to see what is there, explaining what things they see, and imagining what else they can be in this world, exploring, explaining and learning among the children who most closely match their motives and goals. The playfulness of childhood is the most demanding teacher that we now have. No one in these children’s lives will ever force them to work so hard.

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For the translation, thanks to Stanislav Sukhanitsky, who responded to my call in the “previous chapter.” Who wants to help with the translation - write in a personal or mail magisterludi2016@yandex.ru

By the way, we launched the translation of another cool book - “The Dream Machine: The History of Computer Revolution” .

about the author

Marvin Lee Minsky (Eng. Marvin Lee Minsky; August 9, 1927 - January 24, 2016) - American scientist in the field of artificial intelligence, co-founder of the Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [ Wikipedia ]

Interesting Facts:

• Minsky was a friend of critic Harold Bloom from Yale University (Yale University), who spoke of him as “sinister Marvin Minsky”.
• Isaac Asimov described Minsky as one of two people who are smarter than himself; the second, in his opinion, was Karl Sagan.
• Marvin is a robot with artificial intelligence from the cycle of Douglas Adams novels Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (film).
• Minsky has a contract to freeze his brain after death in order to be “resurrected” in the future.
• In honor of Minsk named the dog of the protagonist in the movie Tron: Legacy. [ Wikipedia ]