Your Emotions Act as an Information Filter

In “Analyzing What Robots Tell Us About Human Nature,” The Sims creator Will Wright describes how robots will need human capabilities in order to function in the real world.

One such ability is filtering information from the environment.

You have to filter important information to survive

Because, well — there’s a lot of information out there.

Wright says:

“If you actually look at the amount of data coming in through all your senses, there’s something like 100 million bits of information coming in every second through your visual system and another 10 million bits coming through your auditory system and another one million bits coming through your tactile system.”

Emotional reactions act as a filtering process

Between the lines, what Wright’s saying is that real-world embodied robots will need emotional or affective systems.

Because in us humans, they filter important information from the environment and all of its vast data.

From a robot’s perspective, emotion is simple:

Emotion = Thought + Meaning (Expressed as Feeling)

Emotion, or affect, highlights information that the brain has wired as being relevant to survival.

Filtering is mostly a subconscious process

Wright says:

“We’re basically at any given time absorbing hundreds of millions of bits of data per second through our senses. We can manage this, because our conscious stream is only aware of a very tiny fraction of that sensory input, maybe a few hundred bits per second. Most of our intelligence is really a filtering process. Which of those bits are most relevant at any instant? Our sensory awareness is really much higher than we perceive.”

Much of the sensory filtering process is done unconsciously.

When you’re about to fall asleep for instance, the part of your brain called the thalamus slowly shuts down.

It filters out noise and distraction from your environment bit by bit.

You don’t need to be aware of that process while it’s occurring, because your body just needs to fall asleep.

Emotional filtering is mostly subconscious

Many filtering processes are also driven by subconscious cognitive networks.

Also known as schemas and constructs. I often refer to them as: “thoughts, beliefs, assumptions, and expectations.”

This type of filtering is unique because it drops big hints of its existence, in the form of your emotional reactions.

Emotional filtering in action

Let’s say you’re talking on the phone with your mother-in-law. She goes on about lots of things…

• The fact that she won’t be traveling for a while.
• That your spouse has been distant from her lately.
• That she wants you to come visit with the kids soon.
• That she still doesn’t know what get your spouse for the big 30.

Now, you’ll likely respond more emotionally to one of her statements more so than the others…

• Maybe you leave the call worried, because you hope there’s not some serious health problem preventing your mother-in-law from traveling.
• Maybe you’re concerned, because you’ve noticed that same distance in your own relationship with your spouse.
• Maybe you’re anxious, because you know you can’t afford to go all the way across the country to see her again, but you don’t know how to (if you should) tell her that your spouse’s job went down with the economy.
• Or maybe you’re freaking out, because you completely forgot about the upcoming birthday, and it’s in four days!

One of those statements will make the biggest impression on you — and you’ll know which one based on how you feel.

Because your emotions tell you what information is important to pay attention to.

Not based on a completely “objective” scale — but based on the unique makeup of your cognitive networks.

Emotional filtering is intelligent

Society tells you that emotions are messy, stupid, hasty, and unsafe. That they’re illogical and don’t make sense.

Your emotional reactions are simply part of your information filter.

You absolutely need this filter to know what to pay attention to.

This filtering is smart, sharp, and great at grabbing your attention. Anger amps you up. Jealously jolts your Soul. Heartbreak can shatter you. And pain can nearly drown you.

All because the information those emotions signal to is highly relevant to your well-being and survival.

And you’re intelligent enough to figure out how exactly.

(When the information has been wired in a maladaptive way, meaning that your cognitive networks are bogged down by bugs… it’s your job to trace your feelings back to their cognitive networks that contain dysfunctional programming which was passed on to you by others.)

What do you think?

Will Wright says that robots will need human capabilities to function in the real world, one of which is filtering important information from the environment.

My interpretation of his words is that robots will need emotions.

(And that because of that, the Singularity won’t be so scary.)

Because emotions serve us well, when we just know how to use them.

What do you think?

Related posts:

1. Nurture Your Emotions with a Woman’s Touch
2. 3 Reasons Why You Can’t Kill Your Emotions
3. The Robot Guide to Emotion
4. Alex is a Really Nice Guy/Robot
5. Do You Want to Control Your Emotions?