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Can a computer be built to be as intelligent as a human being? What intellectual superiorities do humans have over any advanced artificial intelligence computer?

Computers could not be programmed to analyze emotional responses in an adaptive fashion. They could be programmed to respond to emotions individually - for instance they could program a feeling into a computer and have the computer respond to that feeling, however there are many different subtleties to any feeling.

Can the different subtleties to any feeling be described and programmed? There are different components to any feeling in the real world or internal stimulation (such as thinking or physical feelings). Computers will never really have any feelings because they are not biological, or they are not 'alive'. Feelings come from physical stimulation - or feelings are simply physical processes.

Feelings are physical processes that come from emotions that people experience. The emotions that people experience come from stimuli in the world or internal cognitions. So the question then is, what makes a feeling subtle? Is it a deeper way of feeling or is it a more complicated way of feeling?

If it is a more complicated way of feeling then it could be programmed into a computer, but what kind of information does a complicated feeling convey that is different from a more deep or intense feeling? Maybe a deep feeling has more information that is related to that single feeling that is connected in the real world.

So feelings that are simple might have more details that are just related to one thing in the world. Feelings that are complicated could relate to more detailed objects in the world, or multiple objects that are grouped together. Multiple objects grouped together could result in multiple feelings for each object, or one feeling altogether, for instance if someone goes into a room they get a feeling for that room.

If a robot had to look at a line of houses on a street, then the robot couldn't possibly recognize one street from another street because it would have to recognize all of the different houses on the street - and then label that street as the street that had all of the different houses in that order. Furthermore, each house would have to be 'abstracted' so that it could be more artistic or easily programmed and so that the robot could recognize the simple features of the house.

Ideas, objects and artificial intelligence

So feelings have associated ideas, an idea can contribute to a feeling, or multiple ideas can contribute to feelings or a feeling. If humans have feelings then they use their feelings to think about their ideas, however, what then is the difference between ideas and feelings? Why wouldn't a human simply have ideas then, and not need to experience feeling?

Feelings certainly separate out ideas in terms of the time that the idea occurs to the person, and it could also have associated ideas, however, how do two ideas interact in terms of feeling? If a person has the idea of 'orange' and the idea of 'apple', then what happens when the person thinks of appples and oranges at the same time? And how would that be different from seeing an apple and an orange together on a table?

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Source:  OpenStax, How is emotion and cognition experienced, processed, and related?. OpenStax CNX. Jul 11, 2016 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col11919/1.7
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