I claim that valence plays an absolutely central role in the brain
I believe you are right. I am working on a comprehensive theory that covers valence, emotional evaluation, and belief sets. I propose that it is fairly easy to predict emotional response when certain information is known, essentially a binary tree of decision questions will lead to various emotions; the strength of the resulting emotions is based on a person’s current valance toward action/inaction as well as the result of normal emotional evaluation. Valences are added/subtracted to the final emotional evaluation. For example, something may produce happiness but if your valence is very low (depression), you will discount it. Valence and emotional evaluation are feedback loops resulting in greater and greater inhibition of action or greater and greater drivers of action. At the extremes we call these depression and mania. I’m going to digest your valence series a bit more and will be publishing some of my thoughts soon. Although if you are interested, would love to talk to you about them and possibly publish together. My knowledge of the mechanics of the brain are limited, I’m more of an algorithm/pattern person and only need enough detail to form my hypothesis. I don’t live in details like most. I abstract very quickly and that is where I play and think.
I’m probably not interested in coauthoring but I’ll be interested to read your ideas! :) Let me know when you publish anything so I don’t miss it (steven.byrnes@gmail.com).
Thanks. I take that as encouragement to hurry the f*** up.
Have you considered the fact that emotional evaluation comes at a high cost? It takes energy to evaluate the actual emotion as well as the valence. And it is all situational of course because to do emotions evaluation of a moment, you need to take beliefs/thoughts as well as sensory input. You model doesn’t point that out enough. The human brain grew from the brainstem/limbic to the cortex AND the motor cortex. Our CNS is part of our brain, period. And it all works on valence. The actions you take are informed by valance.
So the brain has to take beliefs and current input and evaluate it. Now, how much energy do you think that evaluation takes? And the higher the valence, the higher the urgency of your action/intents.
In the end, yes, the brain is an RL model. However, how is emotional valuation conducted? What brings back the decision for action? You say it is a sum total of micro valences. And it is . Each micro valence is make up of binary decisions about self, other, the topic. But what about the possible actions to take and the predicted benefit of each? That is for my paper.
So I will say that you have the gist of hte valence model correct as I see it. And because you published it first, I will ensure that I incorporate what you’re put together in my final model. I am working with a neuropsychologist on it and we plan to publish sometime this year. She is working on some experiments we can do to back up the paper’s claims.
I believe you are right. I am working on a comprehensive theory that covers valence, emotional evaluation, and belief sets. I propose that it is fairly easy to predict emotional response when certain information is known, essentially a binary tree of decision questions will lead to various emotions; the strength of the resulting emotions is based on a person’s current valance toward action/inaction as well as the result of normal emotional evaluation. Valences are added/subtracted to the final emotional evaluation. For example, something may produce happiness but if your valence is very low (depression), you will discount it. Valence and emotional evaluation are feedback loops resulting in greater and greater inhibition of action or greater and greater drivers of action. At the extremes we call these depression and mania. I’m going to digest your valence series a bit more and will be publishing some of my thoughts soon. Although if you are interested, would love to talk to you about them and possibly publish together. My knowledge of the mechanics of the brain are limited, I’m more of an algorithm/pattern person and only need enough detail to form my hypothesis. I don’t live in details like most. I abstract very quickly and that is where I play and think.
I’m probably not interested in coauthoring but I’ll be interested to read your ideas! :) Let me know when you publish anything so I don’t miss it (steven.byrnes@gmail.com).
Thanks. I take that as encouragement to hurry the f*** up.
Have you considered the fact that emotional evaluation comes at a high cost? It takes energy to evaluate the actual emotion as well as the valence. And it is all situational of course because to do emotions evaluation of a moment, you need to take beliefs/thoughts as well as sensory input. You model doesn’t point that out enough. The human brain grew from the brainstem/limbic to the cortex AND the motor cortex. Our CNS is part of our brain, period. And it all works on valence. The actions you take are informed by valance.
So the brain has to take beliefs and current input and evaluate it. Now, how much energy do you think that evaluation takes? And the higher the valence, the higher the urgency of your action/intents.
In the end, yes, the brain is an RL model. However, how is emotional valuation conducted? What brings back the decision for action? You say it is a sum total of micro valences. And it is . Each micro valence is make up of binary decisions about self, other, the topic. But what about the possible actions to take and the predicted benefit of each? That is for my paper.
So I will say that you have the gist of hte valence model correct as I see it. And because you published it first, I will ensure that I incorporate what you’re put together in my final model. I am working with a neuropsychologist on it and we plan to publish sometime this year. She is working on some experiments we can do to back up the paper’s claims.