Feeling and Qualia ^12-

However fancy the arrangement, the human mind is still, only made from matter. There is no mysterious essence of feeling from magic atoms hidden away in the corners, and non-invisible real atoms do not feel! That leaves only one cause - information. When energy and matter are able to represent coherent information, such information can subsequently be graded, and that information interpreted as feeling. It is a computational trick; an illusion, necessary to control the behavior of biological creatures. Evolution uses the process of consciousness and the subjective 'closed loop' belief in feelings, to guide behavior toward the survival and reproduction of genes. Although we may assert pleasure and pain to be computational illusions, we have no conscious control over the process; so telling ourselves pain is just information wont work. ^4-

For humans there is a first person relationship between the sense modalities and the affect within the mind. Every sensory receptor - whether from touch, sight, sound, smell or taste, will flow into memory somewhere, and maps directly to the first person perspective in a simulated environment. This nexus represents the "eye'' or "I'' of consciousness. Together with the muscles, the sensorimotor system forges the creation of a simulated environment which is processed by filters to grade simulations according to genetic and cultural presets. These analyses produce the illusion of feeling and emotion. They are used to guide subsequent cognitive attention.

But this information can have no meaning until it is grounded, through instantiation, to virtual objects that have form and invariably a history timeline (behavior). What we actually perceive are virtual objects within our own minds, the senses are used to align these objects to external reality. To consolidate existing memories, or to train new memories if the objects are novel. Once the sensory flows are aligned to precedents, the scene can then become known. Not simply because of the informational connection to a form - the instantiation. But because the virtual object forms have known behavior precedent potentials and a "spatial" home within the mirror-world simulation.

This is the point at which subconsciousness can take hold, by taking these behavior precedent options and running trials "subconsciously", away from the perceived scene - which may be linked or not to reality through the sensorimotor system. Subconscious simulations are fast, dynamic simulations, that seek out narrative with significant grading points. And this is where the issue of emotions and feeling states - "qualia" enter the picture. Genetically, the brain is programmed, and programmable, with a value hierarchy. Just as the eyes are formed in expectation of light, so the brain is formed with memory references in expectation of information against which to compare. We describe the subsequent gradings as our feelings and emotions. The most obvious example being the sexual beauty (form) and grace (behavior) of the opposite sex. Emotional recognition that is innate.

The higher speed of subconsciousness is necessary to discover scene outcomes ahead or real world time. Such that actions aligned to goals can be discovered before it is too late - such as catching a ball. Emotional grading of simulations is generally more intense if they are currently aligned to reality through the senses. This motivates action in preference to reflection.

So to summarize. The brain contains information describing object forms and behaviors. These memories are organized into a spatial hierarchy mimicking the external world. Some memories are created by the genes, but the bulk are forged into memory as the sensorimotor system interacts with reality. The contents of consciousness are the scene alignments currently in resonance within memory and reflecting back to the sensory cortices, such that the sensory envelope of the modalities can extend to embrace imaginary worlds. Subconscious processes are resonances not currently aligned to the sensory cortices, although fully capable of being emotionally graded, leading to non conscious feeling states and motivations. The brain needs subconscious processes (i.e. the simulation and grading of memory precedents) in order to discover choices upon which to align consciousness and/or physical actions.

The analog nature of human biology, which interfaces electrical, chemical and cellular processes beneath the computations of "mind'', leads to physical pathways, sensitized chemical boundaries, linking the computation of feeling to the sensory "feeling" of feeling - to qualia. There is strong evidence to suggest that supplemental sensory regions exist beyond the traditional modalities, mapped instead to an existential feeling space deep inside the body, but in actuality merely extending across chemical boundaries within the brain. Such a mechanism would provide powerful feedback paths of the same "class of feeling sensation'' as from the touch senses. But without the concomitant external body surface mapping. Instead, it is as if some "phantom limb'' were at the body's core. Thus the feeling effects of subconscious emotional script analysis will have physical manifestations. Evidence from pharmacology clearly points to the existence of chemical pathways affecting emotion and states of mind.

Like a "second sense'', emotion would impart an evolutionary advantage even before the emergence of higher cognition. Since primitive emotions can provide effective shortcuts to otherwise complex, or slow, effortful cognitive processes. It can often be seen directly in children before they learn to subordinate their emotions to their emerging wider scope cognition. This same effect occurs in the processing of language, providing short cuts to understanding. Much of our social language is predominantly emotional, often pre-empting and short circuiting rational thought; since the whole meaning really is meant to be just the emotion tags. It would often be considered quite disingenuous to even attempt a rational analysis. Spock here comes to mind!

Emotions are not only used by the brain to grade simulations, they can also be linked to objects to help predict their behaviors. Animation within a simulated environment will involve causes, objects (actors) and effects. The emotional states of objects (which include people and animals, as well as inanimate objects) originate from the context, the initial conditions and from the historic memory records. This empathic knowledge within the simulation is different from the first person emotional analysis of sub consciousness used to grade the scripts. It instead provides behavior cues to more accurately guide the simulation. For example, empathic knowledge of joy or anger in a character will significantly affect their expected behaviors and interactions. Even traditionally inanimate objects can be injected with empathic behavior attributes as evidenced in cartoons. Such as an "angry car'' or a "cheerful flower''.