Have you ever considered why it is people have emotions? What are emotions really comprised of? What triggers them, what determines their intensity? What causes the same stimuli to be interpreted in two different ways, by two different observers?
I’ve put some thought into this during a discussion about the creation of an emotions chip and how one would go about programming emotional responses into a computer or robot.
Consider this hypothetical humanoid example:
John and Matt are friends – they’ve been friends since they were little kids. They like to rough-house, have insult contests to see who can come up with the most insulting quip, and have generally different preferences in women.
While running down the city sidewalk, John takes a physical jab at Matt, Matt reacts with a friendly reciprocal jab. During the horseplay, a bystander gets run into, and also jabbed. The bystander yells out some profanity and insults, and fumes about it the rest of the day.
