In the last past I described a simple scenario involving empathy.
In this part I describe what is going on inside both of their brains. The idea is to explain the actions and emotions of Bill and Sally.
Each picture shows the stylized insides of a particular brain, and includes icons that represent that brain's mental models of the items in the world.
For example, Bill and Sally's brain both contain mental models of each other, which are continually being updated via sensory data and other clues. If Bill notices that Sally is wearing a blue dress, his mental model of Sally is updated to include this information. Similarly, if Bill notices that he's sniffling, his mental model of himself is updated to indicate that he has a cold.
Here's a little sketch that shows Bill and Sally, and shows icons of their mental models of each other:
Now let's take a look at what happens inside their brains during the simple scenario.
Inside Sally's brain when she treads on the nail
The signal from her foot travels to her brain and splits into two parts, each of which gives rise to a different experience.
One part corresponds to the raw physical sensation, which in this case would be the sharpness of the nail. If she had dropped acid on her foot instead, it would be a burning sensation.
The other part updates her mental model of herself with the tag <pain>, which indicates that she is incurring damage. When a mental model is tagged with <pain>, her mind experiences the sensation of pain, which has an intrinsic negative quality.
The central part of my theory is that a brain experiences the emotion of pain when any of its mental models are tagged with <pain>. Or more generally, a brain experiences the emotion of xxx when any of its mental models are tagged with <xxx>.
Sally is now experiencing both the physical sensation of sharpness and the emotion of pain. Because the emotion of pain is intrinsically bad, that part of her brain broadcasts a signal that is essentially a call for help; perhaps another part of her brain can assist and stop the source of the pain?
One part of her brain detects the signal and assists by controlling her vocal muscles and crying out. This essentially propagates the signal from inside her brain to the outside world in the hope that someone can help Sally.
Inside Bill's brain when he hears Sally cry out
When the sound of Sally's cry reaches Bill's ears, part of his brain recognizes it as a cry of pain and updates his mental model of Sally with the tag <pain>. This causes Bill to feel the emotion of pain (recall that this is the central part of my theory; a brain experiences the emotion of xxx when any of its mental models are tagged with <xxx>.)
Bill is now experiencing the emotion of pain (but not the raw physical sensation - only Sally is experiencing that aspect). Because the emotion of pain is intrinsically bad, the part of his brain that represents Sally broadcasts a signal that is essentially a call for help; perhaps another part of his brain can assist and stop the source of the pain?
One part of his brain detects the signal and assists by controlling his muscles to bend over and pull the nail out of her foot.
Note that Bill's brain was highly motivated to help Sally because it started to experience the emotion of pain when its mental model of Sally was tagged with <pain>.
Inside Sally's brain when the nail is pulled out
When Bill pulls the nail out of Sally's foot, the physical sensation of sharpness goes away and her mental model is updated with the tag <relief>, which is an intrinsically positive emotion. This causes Sally to feel the emotion of relief. A signal indicating relief is then broadcast and detected by another part of her brain which reacts by putting a smile on Sally's face. This has the effect of propagating the signal of relief to the outside world.
Inside Bill's brain when the nail is pulled out
When Bill sees the smile of relief on Sally's face, he updates his mental model of her with the tag <relief>. This causes Bill to feel the emotion of relief. A signal indicating relief is then broadcast and detected by another part of his brain which reacts by putting a smile on Bill's face.
In the next part I will summarize my theory and why it suggests a profoundly different way of thinking about brains.
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