Intelligent Systems And Their Societies

Emotions & Energy

In humans the fundamental mechanisms of the mind include emotions. It is interesting to observe which role the emotions play in human IS's:

Positive Emotions:

Pleasure, happiness: We reached an objective.
Triumph: We reached our objective, even though another IS tried to prevent it.
Admiration: Another IS always reaches its objective, seen positively.
Friendliness: toward another IS which many times assists us in reaching our objectives.
Love: of nature, life, of all that permits us to reach our objectives.

Negative Emotions:

Annoyed/mad: We did not reach an objective.
Frustration: We did not reach an objective, even after various attempts.
Sadness: We are aware of a situation, or of another IS, which in the past made it easier to reach our objectives, that does not exist anymore.
Hate, resentment, hostility: of another IS that continuously hinders us in reaching our objectives.
Envy: Another IS always reaches its objective, seen negatively.
Despair: We realize that we are not able to reach our objective.
Depressed: In the recent past, we did not reach most objectives.

All this, in humans and some higher animals is accompanied by biochemical reactions that sometimes hinder serene thought. So it seems that emotions are an indicator showing whether we have reached our objectives or not, or that another IS has reached its objectives or not.

Emotions are contagious. Emotions that we note in our environment produce in ourselves the same emotion. For an optimum working of the brain on the long run, it seems that it should have more positive than negative emotions. If a human is surrounded by an environment continuously filled with predominantly negative emotions, it can not function well; it suffers from emotional pollution of the environment.

Energy
To function, an IS needs energy. Humans are IS's and, therefore, they need energy. An example of a formula for this needed energy could be:

C = E₀/t + E₁/t
Where:: C = Consumption of energy, measured in Kcal/sec; E₀ = Energy consumed at rest, measured in Kcal; E₁ = Additional energy needed to think and act. (Thinking needs a considerable amount of energy--just observe the size of the arteries going to the brain!); t = time interval

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