Ontologists All,
If fruit flies can and do indeed exhibit all the "component"
emotions that humans can and do exhibit, then the fruit flies could be investigated
as subjects in experiments about emotions, and about possible pharmaceutical
candidates, related to emotional disturbances.
Here is a quote from a Cal Tech lab report:
"These
experiments provide objective
evidence that visual stimuli designed to mimic an overhead predator can induce
a persistent and scalable internal state of defensive
arousal in flies, which can influence their subsequent behavior for
minutes after the threat has passed," Anderson says. "For us, that's
a big step beyond just casually intuiting that a fly fleeing a visual threat
must be 'afraid,' based on our anthropomorphic
assumptions. It suggests that the flies' response to the
threat is richer and more complicated than a robotic-like avoidance reflex."
The report doesn't identify which emotional "components"
they "observed" in fruit flies after simulating existential threats
to the flies. But I would expect Cal Tech professors to get their ducks
in a straight row fairly often since Pasadena is so far from the surf.
Here is the report from their web site:
http://www.caltech.edu/news/do-fruit-flies-have-emotions-46769
Would it be possible to automate an evoked response that demonstrates
each emotional state designated by the professor as a "component"?
If so, would it then be possible to write an ontology discovery program that
explores that space using a buncha fruit flies crossed with a buncha
experimental situations?
It would only have to start with the observed components' emotional
effects. Then that information could be used to design specialized and
generalized experiments to produce more organized behaviors. The
experiments, specializations and generalizations would, of course, form some
kind of lattice in the end if all components can
be observed.
That could also be a way to work on identifying which of the
emotional "components" are truly fundamental to those of us who are descended
from the fruit fly. Perhaps even emotional illnesses, such as
schizophrenia, OCD, bipolarity, etc. could be matched to new drugs based on
this emotion research in flies.
But the first step is in creating an ontology that might be
observed in other fruit flies, but varied due to their individual genetic
divergences.
Suggestions anyone?
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper,
Rich Cooper,
Chief Technology Officer,
MetaSemantics Corporation
MetaSemantics AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
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http://www.EnglishLogicKernel.com